


Bring the Brightness

by Antarc



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: (Steve/Nancy only at the beginning), (implied) Human Experimentation, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Dissociation, Drug Use, F/M, Getting Together, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Mild Horror, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Steve Harrington Needs a Hug, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-04
Updated: 2020-06-18
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:08:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 25,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24538249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Antarc/pseuds/Antarc
Summary: Steve has been blissfully unaware of the supernatural tucked away in Hawkins for most of his life. What he doesn’t expect is for his own past to catch up with him when he ends up getting dragged into the periphery of the Upside Down, while battling with his own demons. And he certainly did not expect to fall for Billy Hargrove in between.
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington, Steve Harrington/Nancy Wheeler
Comments: 17
Kudos: 73





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This start is kinda Steve/Nancy-heavy, but I promise it's just the first chapter!

_March, 1984_

Steve feels shaky from exhaustion when he gets into his car. It doesn’t help that he’s also a bit maudlin because he’s going to make this drive on his own for once. He’s already gone through the familiar motions of grabbing water and a snack, as well as his key to lock up the house on autopilot. Even when everything else about himself no longer feels the same, at least his routine hasn’t changed. Just a few months ago, he’d be off to pick up Tommy and Carol for the trek down to Evansville, where they’d get their weed from Marcus S, who graduated high school their freshman year. Now, all that greets him is silence and the well-known smell of his car’s leather interior when he closes the drivers side door. 

Sure, he could just hit up one of the guys who deal two towns over, but he’s always liked the excuse to get out of Hawkins for a short while. And Marcus is a nice guy, who’s fun to hang out with for a bit and doesn’t give Steve the creeps like some of the guys Tommy likes to hit up. Right now, he just wants to be around a friendly face.

It’s not even so much that he misses Tommy and Carol specifically and more that he misses going on a four hour round trip with someone to keep him company. They would keep away the silence permeating every second he didn’t spend at school or out with his friends. They’d meet up with Marcus at his apartment, pay, pass a pipe around until they were pleasantly baked and then drive to a local diner with crazy good milkshakes before heading back to Hawkins again. Rinse and repeat every couple of weeks throughout sophomore year and the beginning of junior year.

He’d briefly mentioned getting stoned to Nancy a week ago, when he realized the days were finally starting to warm up and winter was leaving Hawkins in favor of fresh spring-green. By that point, the nightmares had been regularly waking him up in panicked states in the middle of the night and he’d resorted to soothing himself into more manageable, tension relieved sleep by smoking a bowl. It had helped, but it also meant he’d been burning through his stash faster than usual and would have to restock soon. 

And a sunny day to take Nancy into that spring green, away from Hawkins and the nightmares she was having, too? The idea had just popped into his head and out of his mouth immediately after, while they were leaning against her locker between classes.

“You know, we could just drive out to the quarry, get high, relax a bit. It’s getting nice out.” His hands on her hips had moved slightly up and down, grounding himself just by being in her presence and getting to touch her. He’d said it with a smile tugging at his lips, already feeling charmed by the thought of a languid afternoon in the steadily warming sun with her. He’d just wanted to offer her something to take her mind off of those moments when she’d get stressed over school or stressed over Barb or just upset about how everyone seemed to have returned to normal. They’d made it through the winter and hopefully that meant they were ready to leave any nightmare creatures behind with it. 

“As if.” She’d just laughed, her expression incredulous. Like he’d said the most ridiculous thing she’d ever heard. There’d been a brief pause, in which the realization had crept onto him that she really thought he’d been joking. It must have shown on his face that he wasn’t.

“Wait, you’re serious?” And all of a sudden he’d felt painfully awkward and out of place. For having asked. For assuming. In his haste to correct himself, his voice had come out strangled. “Of course not! Just forget about it!” 

He was still used to what relaxing with Carol and Tommy meant. When he was still familiar with the movement of the two of them piling into his car on a Saturday afternoon, just to make him drive out of town for some weed for Steve and coke for the next huge party. Tommy next to him, Carol in the back. Their loud voices would chase away the silence. Fresh air would drift through cracked open windows, fields, rolling hills, farms and patches of shaded forest flashing by on the I-64 while he could forget his shitty grades in school or the dark, empty house back in Hawkins for a while.

Now that he’s no longer hanging out with his former friends, there’s just empty space on his backseat and no chance of Nancy getting next to him, either. Hell, he can’t even imagine going back to how things were, Tommy and Carol’s singing along to the radio and gossiping about the freshmen at school drifting up from behind and next to him while he’d have to pretend to still like them. After all the disgusting shit they have spouted about Nancy, about the Byers family, about people they’ve deemed worthless, he can’t imagine how they would fit into this space ever again. Asking Nancy to take that place had been a mistake.

That’s what he has to remind himself of. That he’s with Nancy. And she’s a straight A student, who doesn’t skip school or drinks or parties, at least not for something silly like regular teenager stuff. Who gets this stubborn, disapproving frown when she so much as suspects that Steve might be smoking again. Sometimes, it makes him feel small and chastised when she gives him that look- like he’s standing in his parents’ kitchen in front of his father, seven years old again and getting told off for misbehaving in front of his parents’ guests. 

He’s been trying to quit cigarettes, ever since she gave him a lecture about the potential dangers to his health. _They’re not good for your lungs, they smell bad, you’re going to destroy your chance at getting a sports scholarship when you apply next school year_ echoes her voice in his head. Never mind that as his final year of school steadily approaches, bad grades looming over him even when she’s doing her best to help him study, he’s more and more certain that he’s really not going to make it into college anyways. 

It’s just another blow to whoever he used to be. Or just the person his parents always expected him to be. Sometimes he wonders how they managed to come up with all these ideas about him and who he’s supposed to be, when they’ve barely been around enough to parent him for years. They sure do think they can make an awful lot of demands of him, though.

If he’s being honest with himself, after coming face to face with a monster from another dimension, he just doesn’t have the energy left to pretend that hanging out with his old friends or measuring up to his dad’s vague expectations of success is still important to him. What is important to him is Nancy, who knows he isn’t the smartest tool in the shed, but still smiles at him fondly when he asks her for help with his homework. Who has seen what they’ve been calling the Upside Down with her own two eyes, lost her best friend to it and still gets up every day to continue on. He admires her strength, has wanted to be around and with this small, beautiful girl who hides so much courage and strength underneath her soft, pastel colored exterior. 

And yet, he’s still doing things she wouldn’t approve of. His decision to continue his monthly drive to stock up his weed stash right on top of the list, probably followed by the evenings he spends in his empty home smoking a bowl to stave off a migraine or a nightmare and playing his parents’ The Mamas and the Papas records late into the night while he avoids going to bed.

So, while he doesn’t really care if he disappoints his parents, he does feel guilty about going behind Nancy’s back. He wants her to be proud of him, to be a better, kinder person who she wants to keep around. But he genuinely doesn’t know if he can spend another week plagued by increasingly intense headaches and scared out of his mind of falling asleep. 

How can he explain to her that he so rarely gets high just for the sake of it, that something about that monster they fought last year knocked something loose in him that he can’t set back right inside his head again? Especially when her and the Byers and poor Barb have gone through so much worse? It’s so hard to make sense of- why there’s this deep seated disquiet inside of him that has been impossible to shake. He should be stronger, less bothered by all of this. 

But just thinking about the possibility of telling her about it makes his heart pump so hard, so fast that the sound of blood rushing through in his ears shuts off his hearing, while his breath gets stuck in his throat, even when he’s just fucking sitting in his car. With a shuddery exhale, he pushes the thought far, far away. Grips the steering wheel just to have something to hold onto and slowly leans forward until he can rest his head against it. Let’s the firmness against his forehead ground him.

Ultimately, who he has left behind by taking off his asshole high school king persona or who he’s hiding from when he slips out of Hawkins doesn’t touch him as much, when he thinks about how the inside of his car is still the same. It’s like he’s shed a skin that no longer fits and whoever the guy is who emerged from underneath, it still feels fresh, itchy. And the cool leather of his car against his skin is like a soothing balm.

He opens the glove compartment and rifles around for a moment until he triumphantly tugs out his Hot Space tape and shoves it into the cassette deck. Apparently he’s forgotten that he must have just popped out the tape the last time he listened to it, because it starts off somewhere around the time Freddie Mercury sings “  
“ at him. It’s comforting in its familiarity, though, a reminder that this is still where he belongs. That there’s a remnant of him that clings to the space he’s occupied. He lets the tape play through, just listens to it till the end. Eyes closed, hands resting on his thighs. Then, he exchanges it for The Works and starts driving.

He’d have liked to have shared this part of himself with Nancy. 

It’s fine, though. 

It has to be. 

────── 〔✦〕──────

_October, 1984_

The first time he sees Billy Hargrove, Steve has just gotten out of the car on a Tuesday morning, stopped in his tracks with Nancy when they’re about to head inside the high school. It’s not just the deep blue camaro that draws attention when Hargrove arrives or the girl who bursts in a flash of bright red hair from the passenger side and skates off towards the middle school. It’s a glimpse of a head of wavy blonde hair in a truly atrocious mullet and denim on denim that, just for a second, catches Steve’s eye and ignites a spark of curiosity. 

_Oh no._ That’s all his brain can come up with, when the only thought that registers in his brain is “new, hot”. Here comes trouble. He tries to play it down in front of Nancy, just a quick acknowledgement of the existence of someone unfamiliar, while it’s clear that the likes of Tina and Carol and probably every single girl at Hawkins High is losing their mind over the new guy. That’s all there is to his reaction, he tells himself. Just noticing the new arrival. Even from a distance, the guy exudes a casual confidence that makes Steve annoyed at how easy it catches his attention.

Nancy obviously isn’t impressed- why would she? Whatever cute dreaminess she used to feel in the presence of hot guys was probably all wasted during the time she had a crush on Steve. Before she realized that he’s an idiot. 

He doesn’t like to dwell on it, especially on days like these, when they’ve already started the morning with the humiliating practice of reviewing his halfhearted attempt at a college essay. He’s not going to make it to the early admissions deadline and kind of regrets having given in to showing Nancy the essay at all. Regrets having made the attempt at writing it.

After the truly disastrous dinner with Barb’s parents later that evening, the drive back to Nancy’s house is done in complete silence. He wracks his brain trying to come up with something to say that can convey how much he just wants her to be okay, since she’s clearly been crying again. Her eyes are red-rimmed and puffy, stubbornly fixed on the street in front of them and her body is so stiff when they arrive in front of her house, like she’s bracing for him to make a comment. Like she would rather do anything else than talk right now. So he settles on taking her hand in his before she gets out instead. 

“Hey.” He waits until she finally turns towards him. Squeezes her fingers a little, until she squeezes back. “I know that was a shock to hear today. Just get some rest, okay?” 

Something in Nancy’s expression shutters off. She nods at him, removes her hand from his and leans forward to give him a peck on the lips. 

“I’ll see you tomorrow.” 

Before he can reciprocate the kiss or reach out to hug her properly, she’s already opened the passenger door and slipped out. As he watches Nancy make her way back inside, he can’t help but feel like he missed a vital cue. The empty seat next to him gapes in silence. 

────── 〔✦〕──────

Wednesday morning, he’s ripped from a night of fitful sleep by his alarm with adrenaline coursing through him, a fast-beating heart and a vague feeling of desperation and the now familiar urge to feel the comforting weight of his nail studded bat in his palms. When he closes his eyes for too long, he sees flashes of wallpaper stretching and crumbling away to reveal an emaciated, human-shaped _thing_ with a flower bulb-shaped head revealing rows and rows of teeth. 

It’s not a great start to the day, but he figures if he just gets out of bed, takes off his sweat-soaked shirt, takes a shower and styles his hair into as much gravity-defying volume as possible, he’ll at least look like he’s got his shit together. Reluctantly, he makes himself go through his routine. Lets hot water loosen his tense muscles. Spends too much time in front of the mirror with his hair dryer, a comb and his Farrah Fawcet hair spray, until he’s late enough that all he has time for is a quick stop in the kitchen to chug a cup of black coffee. He quickly eats a banana while standing up and can’t quite tell if he leaves the house in a hurry because he needs to get to school in time or because he’s just desperate to flee the empty, yawning silence that closes in on him until it becomes unbearable. 

By the time study hall rolls around, he feels less on edge. Wears the sunglasses that will be part of his outfit later that night to cheer Nancy up (and maybe rub it in a bit that he’s her boyfriend in front of Jonathan) and does his best to concentrate on making it through the day. Everyone else is talking about Tina’s party and he desperately craves that slice of normalcy the evening promises. Except Nancy has to go and suggest they tell Barb’s parents the truth. Steve manages to talk her down at school, but of course she’s stubborn and has to bring it up again when they’re supposed to be on their way to a night of drunken, mindless dancing.

“Maybe this isn’t the right time for a party,” she says, right there on the goddamn sidewalk, surrounded by already drunk classmates where anyone could overhear them. It makes him heave a sigh that sounds awfully similar to his mother’s main form of communicating displeasure. This really isn’t the time and place to talk about government secrets and he consciously has to push down the irritation that bubbles up. He takes Nancy’s hand in his, to lessen the harshness of his reaction and tugs gently until she starts walking again. Pulls her closer, wraps his arm around her and steers her towards Tina’s front lawn.

“Come on. We don’t have to stay long, but we’re already here, aren’t we?”

On some level, he knows he’s not being fair to Nancy. She’s been upset since the dinner with Barb’s parents, she’s been upset at school and even though he got her to agree to still go to the Halloween party the moment it was announced, now that they’re supposed to make their way inside, he just wishes she was a little less affected. Or at least that she’d try a little harder to pretend to be fine for a while. 

“Her parents deserve to know, don’t you think? Why are we even here?” Desperation rises in her voice. She turns towards him, grabs his upper arms and squeezes, like she can press a satisfying reaction out of him if she just shakes him long and hard enough. But he’s scared. He’s so, so goddamn scared of what might happen if they get the government’s attention, if they spread word of what happened. They’re just highschoolers, for fuck’s sake.

“Nancy, please. Not here.” He touches her arms, her shoulders, her face. Looks her right in her bright blue eyes for a moment, before he hugs her. “It’s not your fault. Please, let’s just go inside.” 

She’s slow to return his embrace. But when they finally move, it’s hand in hand towards the front entrance. They make it to the alcohol, to a room filled with sweaty, dancing bodies while _Shout At The Devil_ blasts from the stereo and Billy fucking Hargrove gets crowned keg king. 

Whatever. It smarts a bit, coming face to face with the guy who has finally taken Steve’s previous place in the school hierarchy. Gets a bit distracting when he does his best to not stare too hard at Billy’s terminator costume that seems to just have been an excuse to show off how goddamn ripped he is.

Somewhere around the time he finally breaks away from Billy and Tommy’s drunken taunts, he realizes he’s lost Nancy and ends up finding her on the way to completely plastered. Attempts to keep her from going full-on blackout drunk. And then he just has to spill punch all over her front and take her up to the bathroom in an increasingly desperate attempt to salvage the evening. Of course it all has to come crashing down in Tina’s bathroom.

Nancy’s slurred “It’s bullshit,” cuts straight through him. The sticky sweet smell and pink stain of spilled punch from Nancy’s costume cling to his hands as he bursts into the hallway, down the stairs, through the throng of people in search of a way outside. He can’t stay here. 

“Hey there, pretty boy. What are you doing here all alone?” Billy’s deep voice cuts through his growing distress when he suddenly appears next to him. His hand lands on Steve’s upper arm and his voice comes out soft and smooth the closer he gets to Steve’s ear that it makes a pleasant shiver run down his back. The effect isn’t reduced even though he stinks of beer and cigarettes, sweat gleams on the naked skin that isn’t covered by his leather jacket. It’s unfair how delicious the nickname sounds on Billy’s lips, how it makes something in Steve light up molten hot all of a sudden and makes him feel dizzy with something other than just alcohol. 

He can’t help but look again: At the freckles all over Billy’s face. His long, dark eyelashes. His lips, tugged into this cocky, sweet smile that’s a lot less mean than the one he had on his face earlier. The blue of his eyes is mesmerizing. A small smile tugs at Steve’s lips in a helpless response for a moment. He can’t tell if the guy is making fun of him or actually trying to be nice after all, now that they’re not surrounded by an entourage of leering classmates.

And then reality comes crashing back down full force when he sees Jonathan half-carry Nancy down the stairs and in the direction of the front door. His face falls and he shrugs Billy’s hands off, his voice breaking on a rough “Nothing much, man. See you around, Hargrove.” Billy looks surprised and sways in place, betraying how wasted he really is. 

Guilt wells up inside like Steve, instantaneous and burning like acid reflux.

He can’t believe himself. 

Nancy’s voice, her _bullshit, bullshit, it's all bullshit_ echoes through his head as he finally finds the front door and storms outside, disappointment and fury hot in his veins. His girlfriend just essentially told him to his face that she doesn’t love him back and he gets distracted by Billy fucking Hargrove’s face. He couldn’t even pull himself together for five seconds. Instead, he just had to watch fucking Jonathan of all people take her home. Because he’s too shitty of a boyfriend to make sure Nancy is okay. Because he made her go to this stupid fucking party, instead of just driving her back home again.

The worst, part, maybe, is how he knows that he wouldn’t have gone back for her. He knows that even now, he still feels hurt and petty enough to wish Nancy would have had to figure out how she’d get back home on her own. It’s not a nice thought. He isn’t really a nice person. 

Unsteady legs carry him further away as _Love Is A Battlefield_ of all things blasts through open windows and follows him out onto the street. He shouldn’t be this fucking miserable. He wants to be inside, dance with Nancy, make out with her a bit in a corner before taking her home. Instead, he stands in cold autumn night air next to his car in the dark and struggles with the realization that for just a moment, looking at Billy completely wiped all his thoughts of his girlfriend from his mind. That he’s been with Nancy for a year and he’s too much of a bitch to take her drunk ass home, because she doesn’t love him. That he has watched the guy he’s pretty sure she’s been pining for for maybe their entire relationship take care of her instead.

He’s on the verge of crying his eyes out or maybe smashing something to bits. Instead, he gets into his car, slams the door closed and starts the drive back to his empty home, stewing in his anger. It’s hard to tell who he’s more furious at- Nancy for getting so drunk that she told him how she really felt, Billy for his mere existence or himself for being such a loser.

When he gets home, greeted by a house with all the lights turned off, he chucks his shoes into the hallway and then simply throws himself onto the living room couch. No one is there to make him go upstairs anyways.

────── 〔✦〕──────

_November, 1984_

It’s a familiar dream he has that night. In that murky dream-world where his consciousness lies in its periphery, he can vaguely tell that he’s asleep. There’s an underlying knowledge that this specific dream only returns preceding a call from his mother from whatever hotel she currently stays at with his father. In that underlying current of consciousness, he wishes he could just wake up. Then it’s gone again and all that’s left is to let the dream carry him through.

He’s in kindergarten when they first start taking him to the facility. At least that’s the first memory he has of it, but as it is with anything that’s connected to the place, he can’t really trust his recollection. It’s preferable to keep whatever memories he does have as far away from active recollection as possible when he’s awake, but it’s not like he can stop his mind from regurgitating snapshots of it in his dreams, no matter how sick he is of them. 

At least he’s certain that this specific memory is real, because he knows his mom used to talk about this specific day multiple times. Used to complain about how long it took for him to just listen and do as he was told. He can never recall what he was supposed to do.

In the dream, Steve is small. From the backseat, he watches the back of his mother’s head, her hands on the steering wheel. Looks out of the window and watches as blurry green rushes by. The facility is a grey, nondescript building at the fringes of Loch Nora, surrounded by a high metal wire fence and forest. From the road, only a driveway and an unobtrusive sign are visible whenever his mom takes him to his appointments. It’s where some of his classmates from preschool go as well, he thinks, though he’s only seen them from a distance passing through brightly illuminated, sterile white hallways. 

There’s a door at the end of one of these hallways. It doesn’t look any different from the others, with a small plaque hanging on the wall next to it. 

But it’s his door. 

His room. 

And he’s terrified of it.

The car ride is short and silent- his mom rarely listens to music in the car and prefers to only turn the radio on for news reports for the short ride. Well-tended to front lawns with big houses peek out between trees until they make way to one of the side roads that leads out to the forest and then to the driveway they have to take every time. These numerous, silent drives are the only part that has stayed vivid in his mind. Bright green in summer, grey and silent in winter. It all blends together in the dreamscape.

They park in front of the building on a mostly empty parking lot behind a gate. As they exit the car, his mother halts for a moment, lays her hand on Steve’s shoulder to keep him from walking towards the front entrance and steps in front of him.

“Steve”, she says calmly as her flat palm strokes floppy bangs out of his face and presses the hair strands to the top of his head. She gently holds him in place and looks him directly in the eyes at the same time. There’s always this indiscernible distance in her voice, even when she focuses her full attention onto him for once. 

“You just need to follow their instructions. Can you do that today?”

She towers over him at that moment. Insurmountable. Immovable. “Of course, mom,” he chokes out.

Steve takes a deep, shivering breath. Maybe if he does well this time, she will praise him. He doesn’t want to think about what doing well actually means. He likes to tell himself that he loves his mom and that she loves him. It’s better than admitting that her cold detachment scares him.

In the dream, she only gives him a curt nod and a cool “See that you do,” before she takes his hand and leads him up a handful of concrete steps and through the doors into a building he hasn’t been to in years and wishes he could finally leave behind. Even while his dream-self takes step after step upwards, he can’t help but shake the feeling that part of the conversation is missing. He fights the urge to cry at the sight of the doors coming closer and closer, colorless hallways waiting behind them until-

The phone rings and wakes him from where he’s been asleep, still on the couch. His headache is minimal, probably because he drank a lot less than Nancy did last night and actually tried to pace himself for once before everything went to shit. The taste in his mouth is pretty disgusting, though. He groans, sluggishly gets up and picks up the receiver in time to be greeted by his mother’s slightly detached sounding voice on the other end. 

“Good morning, Steve.”

“Hey mom.” He knows she was bound for a check up call sometime around this time. His parents may not be home much anymore, but the few times they’ve caught him drunk, throwing a party, high or all three of them at the same time in the past couple of years have been enough to implement at least some form of a control system. The one time he decided to “forget” to call them back resulted in one of his father’s deeply condescending lectures. 

“You’ve been doing your homework?” 

She sounds as if she’s reading from a script. 

“Yes.”

There’s a pause and with an edge to her voice, she continues “And your college applications?”

He hesitates before he presses out a quiet, clipped “Sure.” 

It’s not enough. The moment he hears himself say it, he knows it’s not enough. And of course it isn’t he’s pretty much sent in the kind of applications that will guarantee him rejection letters. There’s another pregnant pause at the other end of the line. She sighs. 

“Look. Your father and I will be in Chicago for a while. So we expect you to hold up your duties. Go to the student councilor to get your applications in order, if it’s that hard. You’ve been making us look bad enough with your behavior. Get this done.”

“I will,” presses out of him. Refrains from mentioning that early admissions are already closed. He’s turning into a tightly wound coil, holds onto the telephone like it’s the only thing keeping him from unwinding until he starts tearing up. He wants to hide, crawl under the kitchen table and stay out of sight from the judgement dripping from every word coming through the phone.

“We don’t expect much,” she continues. The “from you” is clearly implied. As if it’s supposed to soothe him. As if she’s doing him a favor. “But we do want you to show us that you can take some initiative and responsibility for yourself for once.” 

“Of course. I understand.”

“Do you?” She sighs again, exasperation projected loud and clear with just that one, deeply familiar sound. “We  
coming home for Thanksgiving.” Before he can even start to flip flop between dread and excitement, she already cuts down his reaction. “We’ll arrive on Friday evening and have a casual cocktail party planned for some of our local friends on Saturday. You won’t have to stick around for long, if you don’t want to.” 

Sure, as if a cocktail party is ever casual. Of course it’s not an actual choice to go somewhere else that she’s so kindly offering to Steve. These past couple of years his parents have done the bare minimum to turn up once in a while in Hawkins to give the appearance of being involved in the community and with their kid. They like to make the rounds, but prefer Steve to make an appearance at the beginning to greet their guests and then stay the hell away, lest he embarrass them even more than he already has by opening his mouth for actual conversation. 

He makes an acquiescing sound and just as expected, it’s more than enough to give his mother the impression that her useless, stupid son won’t ruin their precious socializing this year.

“Good, good. Well then, make sure you finish your applications and keep the house clean. You have to head off to school soon, right?” A quick glance at the clock in the hallway confirms that it’s a quarter past seven. More than enough time to get ready, even if he probably has to skip breakfast. It’s not like he’s got an appetite right now, anyways.

“Yeah, I’m heading out soon.”

“See you on the twenty-third then.” The line clicks as she hangs up the phone. Thanksgiving feels like it can’t come soon enough, yet also like he never wants it to arrive at all. 

────── 〔✦〕──────


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If being told by Nancy that their relationship was bullshit at the Halloween party wasn’t bad enough, seeing himself confronted with his possibly not-platonic, maybe kinda horny feelings towards a guy - and a guy like Billy Hargrove of all things- is even worse. Playing basketball on opposing teams during practice the next day does not help Steve’s poor nerves. 
> 
> At all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I sure hope y’all are prepared for Steve to not have a great time this chapter.   
> CW for vomiting near the end.  
> Please mind the tags. No idea how this chapter ended up at 9k, but it just be like that sometimes, I guess.

_November, 1984_

If being told by Nancy that their relationship was bullshit at the Halloween party wasn’t bad enough, seeing himself confronted with his possibly not-platonic, maybe kinda horny feelings towards a guy - and a guy like Billy Hargrove of all things- is even worse. Playing basketball on opposing teams during practice the next day does not help Steve’s poor nerves. 

At all. 

He tries not to concentrate on how obnoxious Billy acts, how he shoves too much and gets all up in his business with his stupid hands shoved into Steve’s armpits, as if he can psyche him out that way. How he gets way too close and presses his naked, sweaty chest all against Steve's back while he mocks him with “Heard you used to run this school. “King Steve” they used to call you, huh? Then you turned bitch” in a tone so smug it makes Steve want to elbow him in his stupidly ripped stomach. Even when he does his best to just concentrate on playing, though, he still ends up getting distracted by the heat at his back, the skin contact and heavy breathing right next to his ear. Goosebumps break out on his neck from Billy breathing against him.

“Hey, maybe you should just shut up and play the game,” he huffs out. Billy immediately steals the ball in retaliation and scores in the most obnoxious way he can. His confident shouts grate on Steve as he sucks in breath after breath. The gym fills with the mocking yells of Billy and their teammates trying to get on his nerves, get him to crack. In a way, it’s familiar. Not too long ago, he would have been part of that group. The noise irritates, shoves against his thoughts and reverberates on the inside of his head until he feels a helpless frustration rise within him. 

He obviously hasn’t been particularly popular ever since he stopped going to parties and ditched Tommy and Carol, but it’s not like he lost all respect at school all of a sudden last school year. He was still good at basketball, with the highest number of scores and assists on the team by a decent margin. He still went to extracurriculars and still put the same effort into practice and games. It created a certain security, not having lost the respect his performance on the team afforded him this past year. Now, it feels like he’s completely lost his footing. 

Of course it’s that exact moment Nancy chooses to call him out of practice, like she can’t even be bothered to wait till the end. Humiliation courses through him when he realizes she just watched him get tripped like a goddamn beginner. He interrupts practice to walk up to her to talk and the closer he gets to her, the longer the silence stretches between them as they head behind the gym, the more pissed he feels. But so does she, apparently. 

It’s hard to concentrate on what follows. Finding out that she can barely remember what happened. Nancy’s sullen muteness when she can’t bring herself to tell him that she loves him. It makes genuine anger rise up in him, hot and nauseating. Because he feels like an absolute fool for having talked about staying in Hawkins for her, for thinking she shared his boring, lame fantasy of being happy with her. All he wants is for her to open her suddenly glued-shut mouth and tell´him he’s wrong. But she doesn’t. And he just wants to get the hell away from her.

When they get interrupted, all he can come up with is to throw a “I think that you’re bullshit.” back at her. It doesn’t feel remotely as satisfying as he’d hoped it would in that moment, when he sees her wide, hurt eyes. Well, fuck her.

And of course the rest of the team already knows how he and Nancy “are totally over” the next couple of days. Practice is spent with even more intensified background noise of constant mocking from both Billy and Tommy. God, the two of them are so obnoxious together. It’s like Tommy has finally found the guts to let off all the bitterness he still clearly feels towards Steve for no longer talking to him. 

As if acting like even more of a tool will make Steve want to interact with him again. If there’s one thing Steve doesn’t miss, it’s the awful gossip and shit talking coming from him and Carol. He’d made it abundantly clear over the past year how little he wants to do with them. After he’d continued to treat them with icy silence for so long, they’d reached a point where they were all just completely ignoring each other. But it’s clear that Billy’s arrival has given Tommy’s anger fresh fuel again.

Still, it’s Billy who straight up trips Steve and then grabs his hand to bodily lift him up just to push him back to the ground again. Who gets more in his face than Tommy would ever dare. Because Tommy would get his ass reamed for pulling a stunt like that, while all Billy will get is a mild reprimand from their coach. Steve lies on cold linoleum for a drawn out moment that feels like eternity, too stunned to move and kind of wishes he could sink into the floor and just vanish. He likes basketball well enough, but right now he doesn’t want to play a single additional minute. 

Even in the showers, they just have to join him at the same shower tree. Billy is maybe an inch shorter than him, but with all his posturing and huge ego even here, where they’re supposed to keep some form of respectful distance, convention just really doesn’t seem to matter to him. And then there’s obviously also the sheer bulk of him. Steve isn’t a small guy by any means, but he’s well aware that he’s toned because he does sports, not because he deliberately works out. Billy looks like basketball training doesn’t even count as his main workout.

Steve keeps his eyes firmly away from meeting Billy’s or, God forbid, letting them wander further down than shoulder height. Ignores the turned off water so Billy can make sure Steve clearly hears him mocking him while he casually starts to dry off. Tells himself that losing his temper would be a terrible idea. He slams the water back on after Billy’s stupid comment about “plenty of bitches in the sea” and his hearty clap to Steve’s shoulder, like they’re buddies or something after all the shit he’s been pulling all week. 

It takes every ounce of self control Steve has left to keep his mouth shut, but he stews in his annoyance over Billy’s smugness, his own shitty performance at practice and Nancy’s absence at school after their blow-up all the way through the rest of his shower. Stews in it through drying off, blindly toweling his hair dry, getting dressed and grabbing his bags. 

He heads out a bit later than everyone else, to give himself and his bruised ego some time to feel less raw. Maybe that way he can get home in peace without having to listen to more taunts. 

Except when he steps out of the building to head to his parking spot, Billy is leaning against his car with a cigarette just barely held between his lips. And Steve tenses up. Hargrove shouldn’t be there. He shouldn’t look so natural in this place, like he’s always been part of Hawkins, of the school, existing right next to Steve. Not just in his periphery, but right in his space. Especially when he feels like after he’d been clinging on to his position and status for years, just to have given up and flushed it down the drain instead, Billy is now purely there to mock him.

The fact that it’s so easy to take that spot and repeatedly rub it in makes everything Steve has tried to become outside of that persona feel like a farce. For what did he give it all up? For feeling like he’s no longer a douchebag? For ultimately ending up alone anyways? For watching as the leftovers of whatever goodwill and respect remained at school get taken away by a guy who, to his dismay, is actually better than him?

Steve still kind of wants to punch Billy’s stupid, attractive face. And then shove his unfairly ripped body off of his car. But then he comes closer, poised for another confrontation, and Billy just digs into his jacket pocket and tugs out a packet of Marlboros that he opens and holds out to Steve. The gesture is so unexpected, it stuns Steve into reaching out out of pure reflex. 

He takes one. Watches, as Billy pulls out a zippo, puts the cigarette to his mouth on autopilot and watches as Billy leans into his space to light it.

The first drag, his first hit of nicotine in months, makes his eyes flutter closed for a moment. A bit of the tension he’s felt when he saw Billy waiting for him bleeds out of his body and the intrusion doesn’t bother him too much when he opens his eyes to meet Billy’s gaze. His eyes are very blue and there’s a spark of pure mischief in them. It’s hard to look away, easier to breathe out the smoke he’s been holding in his lungs and close them again when he takes another drag. 

“What do you want?” he finally asks, when the silence stretches on and Billy still hasn’t said a damn word. “You couldn’t keep quiet the entire practice, motormouth.” It’s about the kindest words he can muster up at this point.

Billy gives him this cocky grin, gives Steve a once-over like he knows something that Steve doesn’t. Or like he’s still trying to unsettle him by checking him out. Who the fuck knows. “Aren’t you tired of holding back? Tommy tells me all about what a big deal you were last year, but I don’t fucking see it. You’re one of the least shit players on the team, but you have no drive. Did that girl of yours chop your balls off or something?” 

Steve grits his teeth. “Look, I don’t fucking know what your problem with me is. I honestly don’t give a shit. It’s not my fault you and Tommy can’t focus on actually training when you’re so hell-bent on getting on my dick.”

“Oh?” There’s that edge to Billy’s tone. Like he’s delighted, like he’s just on the edge of exploding into violence or noise. But he’s also eerily still, like he’s going to psyche Steve out that way. Then, something in his expression shifts. The spark is still there, but it’s like some of the cocky posturing slips off his body and face, like a mask is lifted for a moment and he looks much more serious. “My point, Harrington, is that this shitty team only has a handful of guys who can carry it. You’re supposed to be one of them. So put in the work.”

Steve glares at him, while he takes another drag of the cigarette. He lets the smoke sit in his lungs while he mulls over Billy’s quite frankly atrocious attempt at a pep talk. As if he has any standing when he literally just joined the team this school year. He blows the smoke in Billy’s face and then wordlessly shoulders his way past him to open the drivers side door. Throws his bags into the back, rests his elbow on top of the roof as he turns towards Billy. 

“Get off my car. You want me to put in more effort at practice? Then shut the fuck up.”

Before he can get inside and slam the door in Billy’s face, there’s unexpectedly a hand grabbing his forearm. It’s solid, immovable. Billy tugs him closer and all of a sudden is right in Steve’s face again, just as he was earlier. He’s no longer drenched in sweat, but after only a perfunctory shower after practice there’s still a musk coming off of him this close. And Steve, shockingly, likes it. Likes the proximity, the warmth coming off of Billy and his natural smell sticking to his skin now no longer mixed with cologne.

“I’ll hold you to that, pretty boy,” he grins at Steve. Shoves him down and into the driver's seat just as easily as he manhandled him at practice and then just takes off towards his camaro.

And Steve just sits there, stunned. Cigarette still between his lips, its smoke drifting out of his open car as he watches Billy drive off.

────── 〔✦〕──────

On Saturday, he wakes up way too early, shivering with anxiety and unable to fall asleep again. With shaking hands he digs up a pre-rolled joint he’d lazily shoved into his bedside drawer the night before, then heads downstairs with his blanket tightly tucked around him and slowly smokes while Sesame Street plays on TV. It’s mindless and comforting, surrounded by warmth and cheerful, harmless noise. The shaking slowly stops.

He steadily sinks back into the couch, gets all relaxed and hazy for a while, not quite drifting to sleep, but at least finally a bit more grounded when he’s just the right side of baked. Thinks about how much he misses Nancy, how much he still just wants to drive over to her place and spend time basking in her presence. Wants to listen to her talk about her current English essay or help her with her flashcards to learn for the next physics test. Lie down next to her on her bed, press his nose into her soft hair and breathe in her scent until he feels a little less lost. Anything, to get back to that grounded feeling being next to her afforded him.

His mindless fantasy builds up more and more into an uncomfortable level of desperation, until he decides to drive into town that afternoon to get a rose bouquet from the only flower shop in Hawkins and then make his way to the Wheelers’ house. Whatever baseless infatuation he may feel when he looks too long at Billy Hargrove, that’s not who he’s supposed to be.

And since Nancy hasn’t been to school the past days, he’s been getting worried. He’ll just have to do his very best to win her back, to grovel at her feet even if he’s still sore over her words at the party and her unsubtle glances at Jonathan. 

But it’s okay. 

They’ll be fine. 

He can fix this, he has to. 

He knows he wasn’t being kind to her, if he just takes his own hurt ego out of the equation, it might not be too late just yet. That’s what he tells himself, all the way towards the house and across the front lawn, until he gets held up by Dustin Henderson of all people. 

And then reality seems to tilt at an angle the moment the kid opens his mouth and all thoughts about Nancy escape his head. Like all the normalcy Steve has been painstakingly cultivating finally peels off like badly applied wallpaper and exposes the existence of the Upside Down and it's disgusting, terrifying monstrosities underneath once again.

When he agrees to help Dustin, he doesn’t expect to end up in front of a storm shelter. In the middle of the night, since it’s goddamn November and the afternoon bleeds so quickly into evening there barely is enough daytime left to properly notice it. But here he is, staring with Dustin down a staircase that leads into even deeper darkness, with his bat clutched in one hand and a children’s flashlight in the other. 

It’s not a bottomless hole, he can clearly see the steps and knows the cellar’s floor can’t be far off. Still, the descent down feels like an eternity and a half. And as he clutches his bat he tries to take a minimum of security from the knowledge that he has fought a monster before. That he’s used the exact same bat he’s holding right now to bash into whatever awaits him down there. It’s what makes him press on. 

He obviously can’t let Dustin do this on his own, he reminds himself- the kid’s clearly a smartass, but he’s also just a kid. Just because it’s the right thing to do doesn’t mean Steve’s thrilled to encounter another creature. But leaving Dustin to his own devices when Steve is clearly the only somewhat adult person around just wouldn’t be right. 

So he takes the stairs, one foot at a time, down into a damp, dark storm shelter. All that greets him when he reaches the bottom of the stairs is silence. Silence, and the chord to a bare lightbulb hanging from the ceiling in the middle of the room. When he tugs on it, his surroundings are bathed in warm, yellow light and reveal the disgusting, slimy shed skin of whatever nightmare creature Dustin has been keeping as a pet. 

That’s not what deeply unsettles him, though. Hell, he’d honestly prefer to be greeted by a snarling, flower petal-shaped head, instead of the goddamn hole dug into the wall that leads into a tunnel. Viscous, sticky shed skin on the floor and a musty, wet smell of rot and wet earth hang in the air and clog his lungs the closer he gets to it. He calls Dustin down almost on autopilot. 

For a while, they just stare at the hole. It’s too small for them to crawl through and would be too dangerous, anyways. And yet, there’s an invisible pull to it that makes goosebumps break out all over Steve’s arms. It’s like the silence he stepped into when he came down here has retreated into the hole and deeper into whatever lies ahead. He feels like if he could see inside, just crawl into it beyond where the light touches, there will be something waiting for him.

Dustin’s voice snaps him out of his hazy stupor. 

“If Dart has gotten even bigger, we need to catch him before he hurts someone. Lure him out somewhere without people.” He sounds so certain. This kid with his dorky hat and wide smile, who has rambled at Steve all afternoon and into the evening about his goddamn pet demodog both impresses Steve and fills him with fondness. But he also looks pretty exhausted, now that the tension has left them. 

“Fine.” Steve sighs and straightens up. Puts his hands on his hips and leans back a little, until his gaze no longer feels glued to the hole. “But that can wait until tomorrow.” Dustin’s head whips around, his mouth already opened in protest. Except instead of sound coming out, it opens wider in a yawn. “Yup. That’s what I’m talking about.” Steve gestures towards the stairs. “Come on. Up.”

“I want it to be known that I could totally stay up all night and look for Dart right now.” Dustin keeps complaining while he makes his way out of the cellar, with Steve tuning him out while he stays close behind him the moment the lightbulb is turned off. In the house ahead, he notices that all the windows are dark, making Steve frown. 

“Is your mom not home yet?” He follows Dustin to the back entrance, where he rummages in his pant pockets to finally produce a key for the door. He shrugs while he lets them in. Clearly, the house is empty and Dustin flips on a lightswitch next to the door to illuminate a hallway with a dresser draped in a cozy-looking knitted tablecloth. On the wall, Steve spots a few pictures of Dustin at a younger age, with gap-toothed grins next to a blonde woman with a kind smile.

“She’s on shift till nine today, I think.” He shrugs, clearly unbothered. Then, his expression shifts into instant worry. “Oh shit. Mews.”

“Language,” Steve can’t help but say in reflex. Having spent a year around Nancy and regularly at her place around her younger siblings still makes him a bit twitchy when someone younger than him swears. As if he didn’t do the same at Dustin’s age, he internally scoffs at himself. “What’s Mews?”

“Our cat. Well, our very dead, half-eaten by a demodog, cat,” Dustin winces, clearly getting more agitated by the minute. “Ugh, he’s still in my room. I can’t have my mom find out about him, she’ll think I killed him or something.”

Well, nothing quite like spending the rest of his evening helping a middle schooler clean up their dead cat.

“Okay, where do you guys keep your cleaning supplies?” Dustin’s tired eyes immediately light up, expression shifting from worried to clearly delighted and surprised by Steve’s offer to help. 

“Right this way!” He leads Steve to a supply closet in the kitchen, where they arm themselves with garbage bags, cleaning gloves, bleach, a couple kitchen sponges and a bucket with water.

Dustin’s room turns out to have much of the same kind of nerdy, childish charm Dustin himself gives off. Figurines of robots and books on natural science and physics line his shelves, but it’s still pretty neat and clean for a boy’s room. When Steve started making friends and gaining popularity in middle school, just around Dustin’s age, he’d visit Tommy’s place and be amazed at how messy his parents would allow him to be. 

His own room has always been much more to his parents’ taste, for as long as he can remember. The wallpaper matching his curtains, his bed covers matching everything else. Toys put out of sight in storage boxes outside of playtime, until Steve was deemed too old to play with them or find sentimental value in them. They did let him display his sports trophies, though. A constant reminder of how he could catch their attention and approval for a while.

His calendar of scantily clad women is one of the few non-approved indulgences he’s taken into decorating- but what reason is there to fill the rest of his own room with too many unnecessary things anyways?

It’s when he sees a room like Dustin’s that he surprisingly feels a longing ache inside. Not necessarily for this kind of room, but maybe for having a place like this to really call his own for himself. To have a room that reflects a bit more than just the fact that it’s occupied by him, in a home where every room exudes more character than his parents’ entire property. Even just from that short trip through the house to get their supplies, he can tell that it’s a cozy, well-loved place. And Dustin is a well-loved child. 

The mangled corpse of Mews in the corner of Dustin’s room is all the more startling in contrast. It looks incredibly out of place, orange fur and ripped open body and the smell and sight of rotting blood surrounding it. As they lean closer, Steve can hear Dustin suppress a gag next to him.

“Alright, give me those gloves. Put on your own pair and then hold a bag open for me,” Steve instructs. First, they need to get the cadaver out of the room, or better yet out of the house. Hopefully, cleaning the rest of the blood out of the floor won’t take too long afterwards. He opens a window to let the room air out, puts on the pair of gloves Dustin hands him and gets to work, accompanied by Dustin’s barely helpful exclamations of disgust and a few muttered apologies to poor Mews. 

After having shoved Mews’ mangled corpse into two trash bags and a short trip back to the storm cellar to hide it, they start in on scrubbing the stained floor in the corner and a plan on how to lure out “Dart” the next day manifests. He’s mostly thinking out loud and it makes Steve feel a bit queasy just imagining taking him and his friends out into the woods and up to the scrapyard. Then again, it’s just one, hopefully not yet fully grown demogorgon. They should be fine.

When they finally finish up, the room smells less of rotting animal and more of just bleach. With the window open, the smell will hopefully dissipate enough to not rouse suspicion. There’s still a visible stain, but at least it can be easily argued to have come from a bottle of spilled coke, colors from a school project gone wrong or a botched science experiment (apparently that last one has happened before). 

“I don’t think there’s anything more we can do,” Steve finally relents after they’ve admired their handiwork. It really does look like a regular kid’s mess now, and not the remnants of spilled blood. “We both need to get some sleep, though, if we want to go monster hunting tomorrow.” 

Dustin yawns again. “Alright, you’ve got a point. My mom should be back soon, too. So you should probably get out of here before that.”

He still makes a point to see Steve out, even when he’s blinking sleepily in the doorway. “Thanks for helping,” he says. And then, a bit more uncertain: “See you tomorrow?”

Steve musters up one of his old trademark cocky smiles. He’s genuinely exhausted now and not looking forward to encountering another monster from the Upside Down. But Dustin doesn’t need to know that. “Of course, buddy.” He reaches out and ruffles Dustin’s hair, gets an offended squawk in response and a relieved smile in return.

────── 〔✦〕──────

The confrontation with the grown demodogs goes by in a blur, too fast to really register except for snatches of movement in the moonlight, the familiar motion of swinging a baseball bat combined with the not-quite familiar feeling of its nail studded end connecting with a fast-moving body, mixed with the terrified screams of children and his heartbeat thudding in his ears. 

This isn’t what they expected to run into. Not just a single demododog, but a pack. A goddamn pack of them and all Steve has is a barricaded school bus, his bat and three terrified, helpless kids with him. When he rips a screaming Max away from the emergency exit in the ceiling where one of those nasty fuckers is just about to barge in, all he can think is that he needs these kids to come out of this mess safe and alive, even if he won’t be so lucky in the process. Before he can find out what a petal-shaped mouth lined with rows of teeth feels like on squishy human skin, the things get called off by some invisible force, though.

It’s only when they stumble upon Nancy and Jonathan at the edge of the forest and make their way to Hawkins Laboratory that it really hits him how much deeper the hole torn into reality must be this time. The closer they get, driving out of Hawkins and through the forest, the more his mind struggles to wrap around the possible size of the danger they are in. A persistent, low pulse of pain is building behind his left eye and he desperately hopes that the low throbbing doesn’t turn into an outright headache before they get away from this eerily quiet, looming block beyond the barrier.

He’s embarrassingly grateful when the gates finally open to reveal Hopper, the Byers and Nancy’s little brother and another man driving towards them, yelling at them to get away. 

Something about the lab has made his hackles raise so strongly, he only realizes how on edge he has been when the tension slowly bleeds out of his limbs while he drives towards the Byers’ house. While he listens to the kids in the back of his car speculate about what’s going to happen next, what’s happening with Will, if the demodogs will come out of the lab anytime soon and fall over Hawkins, the pain behind his left eye still pulses along with his heartbeat, though.

After they figure out a way to get Will to communicate how to deal with the Upside Down, it’s like an undercurrent of electricity starts running through Steve’s veins, occasionally wracking him with shivers. 

Something is wrong. 

Something is very, very wrong and he can’t put it into words. 

It’s like an oncoming storm has charged the air he breathes, has changed the air pressure and makes his head spin. He wraps his arms around himself, tries to subtly step back from the group when the discussion about what to do next escalates into a fight. Raised voices aggravate the ache behind his eye to a pounding, until he can barely concentrate on what’s being said anymore.

Eventually, Hopper cuts through the noise and shuts the demands to go out and act on their own down with a firm “We stay here and we wait for help.” 

Steve feels another stab of pain, stronger than before, and tries to subtly shield his eye from the light hanging right over their heads. Sometimes, he gets these headaches that only get worse with more stress and taking away stimulation can slow down the incoming pain. As he instinctively curls a bit inwards, the guy who arrived with them, “Bob”, asks him if he’s okay. 

Suddenly, Hopper's full attention is on Steve. He looks deceptively calm from where he directly stares at him. There’s a laser-focus in the man’s eyes when they meet Steve’s, a clear moment of recognition. And then he takes a step closer and opens his mouth.

“Harrington, right?” Steve nods mechanically. ”I talked to Owens a while ago. About who to look out for here in town. Apparently they had a lot of records on the Hawkins population at the lab. And he wasn’t allowed to tell me any details… but he did hint at keeping an eye on kids like you. More importantly, he mentioned a kid that very much sounded like you.”

“Oh. Okay?” Steve wants to take a step back, but his feet are rooted into place.

“You’re from Loch Nora?” 

“Yeah… yes.” It’s such an innocuous question. It shouldn’t scare Steve so much.

“Is there maybe something you want to tell me, kid?” 

Ice cold sweat breaks out on Steve’s back.

“No,” he says, voice distant and shaky. “No, no, no, I don’t fucking know what you’re talking about.” His hands slam onto the table and stay there, holding him up when his legs suddenly feel like jelly. The room has grown awfully quiet at his outburst. He can feel more than see everyone’s eyes focused on him. The silence stretches, all he can hear is his pumping heartbeat in his ears, his suddenly labored breaths and the pain behind his eye intensifies to a dull, rolling wave that leaves him on the verge of throwing up.

“It’s okay, Steve. You don’t have to explain right now.” Nancy’s voice breaks through the quiet. It’s so calm and gentle. Like she actually, genuinely still cares about him. The thought makes him want to cry. “Steve?” There’s an undertone of worry when she says his name again. 

Even now, it makes him want to close his eyes and just curl up against her. Just for a moment. But he knows that’s no longer appropriate and it’s not what everyone around him expects of him. What even do they want? What could he possibly give them? He has nothing to give, nothing to say. There’s a noiseless void where his memories should be and yet his mouth moves on its own, words continue to pour out.

“There was a place my mom would take me to.”

“The lab?” Hopper interjects from somewhere.

“No. Not the lab. We were just. In some additional classes. Some cognitive tests. They said I had dys- I don’t fucking know what you want from me.” He’s shaking, sweat running further down his back. Why is everything so out of focus? Why can’t he fucking remember what his time at those classes was like? Or where exactly the place his mom used to take him used to be? Why the fuck would Hopper care about this?

In those sterile, white hallways filled with staff whose faces are blurred out nothingness. The suggestion of faces still existing somewhere underneath that empty space somehow still induces a sense of intense dread and helplessness in him. And beneath it all, there’s something else lurking at the edges of his consciousness. 

The sound of water in the dark. A nondescript door at the end of a hallway. 

The light over his head flickers. 

Once. 

Twice.

The third time, it stays dark.

────── 〔✦〕──────

He’s sinking, with nothing to hold onto. The tabletop, previously steady and bracing against his hands seems to bubble underneath his palms, arms sinking deeper and deeper into pitch black. Where did everyone go? He wants to go back, wants to rip his arms free from the tar-like black that sticks to his skin and drags him deeper, but he’s just as frozen in place as he was before.

True, deep seated panic sets in the further the darkness spreads. He struggles harder, breath going faster and faster, frantic movement slowing to a sluggish squirm when the tar-like substance travels up his torso. A sob works its way out of his throat, followed by hot tears on his cheeks. Everything else is so cold.

Darkness surrounds him. And when the tar reaches his throat, spills over his mouth, his nose, his face, until he is fully submerged, he gives up. He lets it drag him deeper, until he just. Floats in nothingness. He wants to beg someone, something to return him to the room he can no longer sense. 

Instead, it becomes increasingly hard to tell where up and down was. His hands stretch above him, but there is no ceiling. His legs stretch underneath him, but there is no floor. And then he drags his arms in front of him, to his face to cover it with his hands because there’s nothing else he can do but float in this all-encompassing nothing. Soon, he thinks, he too will become nothing.

And then his knuckles brush against an ice cold surface, right in front of him. With a sense of intense vertigo, his perception shifts. There’s ice. Not in front of him- but above him. 

When he shifts his hands from his face, he can see through it. A blurry form stands on the ice right above him. He can’t make out details, but it’s clearly human-shaped, clad in dark clothes and slowly moving above him, getting closer. Finally, the shape of two pale hands and a face hovers above him. He turns his own hands. Presses his palms so hard against the ice, he loses all feeling in them. Something aligns. The ice cracks.

────── 〔✦〕──────

With a scream ripped from his throat, he returns into his body, into the Byers’ kitchen. It’s like lightning has struck him, coursing through every nerve in his body. He’s on the floor next to a table and there’s the familiar faces of Dustin and Nancy hovering above him. Framed in between them, though, is an unfamiliar face of a girl with slicked-back hair and kohl-lined, big eyes. One of her hands slips from his forehead.

Slowly, he sits up. The pain behind his left ear is a distant echo from its intensity just moments ago. For a breath, the room stays quiet. Then, the kids erupt into noise.

“What the hell was that?” Dustin’s voice is closest to him and his volume makes Steve’s ears ring. “Was that a seizure? Is he possessed, too?”

“Why did you suddenly start talking about a wound?”

“What is ‘remaining dust’ supposed to mean?”

“I… what? I did what? I don’t.” He can’t bring himself to formulate the right words, the right answers to these questions. 

“Stop.” Hopper’s voice once again cuts through the cacophony. And then he turns and hugs the girl. It’s all a bit too much to process, so Steve instinctively tugs his legs closer to his body and hugs his knees. Buries his face between them, while whatever reunion happening around him luckily takes away some of the attention on him.

A hand lands on the back of his neck, Nancy’s face close to his when he lifts his head again. Despite all the turmoil these past couple of days have made him go through, something in him clicks into place that got already set into motion when he saw her and Jonathan and then later talked to her alone. They can’t get back together. But at the same time, he still cares for her. And, to his utter relief, she still cares about him, too.

“How are you feeling?”

“Not great. I honestly have no idea what just happened.” Before they can continue, the energy in the room shifts. It’s clear that whatever just happened can’t take priority over the crisis at hand. And Steve would honestly prefer it that way, because he can’t- he won’t allow himself to think about it for too long.

“We can’t worry about this right now,” Hopper once again taking the reins is a relief. “The gate needs to be closed. Will still needs the Mindflayer removed. Steve and the rest of you should be fine waiting here- Nancy and Jonathan can help Joyce and Bob with Will. El and I will go back to the lab. And you kids stay here. And wait.”

────── 〔✦〕──────

Of course waiting on the sidelines isn’t what the gang of loudmouthed teens Steve has been left with can accept. Of course he has to fight them tooth and nail to stay behind, because almost getting Dustin, Lucas and Max killed was bad enough. If he lets them go out there again, put themselves into danger with no one as backup but Steve- that’s just a recipe for pure disaster.

And of course, on top of all the bullshit of this night, Billy Hargrove has to appear at the Byers’ house, looking for Max.

A tremor runs through Steve when he steps outside to chase Billy away, before he straightens his shoulders.

He’s only afforded a few moments of reprieve, of a feeling edging towards normalcy when he gets to snark at Billy that he hasn’t seen his sister, before everything goes to shit. Because of fucking course it does. When he and Billy really start beating each other, when Billy’s fists won’t stop coming down on him and his conscious fades, when he wakes up to a stupid band of daredevil kids ready to go into the tunnels come hell or high water- there’s just an endles chant of “no no no no no” in the back of his throbbing head.

Nothing could have prepared him for those tunnels. Their windinging walls, covered in slimy vines and floating spores, with something waiting at their center that tugs at him. He watches a nest, a hub of not-quite-right vegetation go up in flames and the tug lessens. He lifts Dustin, surrounded by a stampede of demodogs, slick, cold bodies pressing by and he never, ever wants to return to this place.

After everything is over, he signs what feels like a hundred pages of non disclosure agreement. Groggily drives Max home in Billy’s car and then turns around to get to the Byers’ place. He’s so goddamn exhausted. 

When he arrives, the front door is still wide open and there on the front porch sits Billy. Fuck. The guy looks up at the arrival of his car and his glare at Steve would be truly intimidating if he wasn’t way beyond the pale in terms of exhausted and just sheer doneness. 

“Harrington,” Billy hisses, words slightly slurred. Clearly, the narcotic hasn’t quite worn off yet. Steve’s suspicion is confirmed when Billy has to grab the rail next to him to get himself standing and sways in place even then. “Wanna explain to me what that fucking thing in the firdge is?” Billy bites out the question like he wants to take a second round at pummeling Steve’s face. “And what the fuck have you done to my car?”

Well, double fuck. “I honestly have no fucking idea what to tell you, man. You wouldn’t believe it anyways.” The expression on Billy’s face is murderous. “Look, I just want to go home. Get in your car, you can’t stay here.”

“Seriously? You’re just… not gonna answer my questions?”

Steve rolls his eyes. Regrets it immediately when it just gives him a spike of pain. “It’s better than lying to you, right? You already beat my face in- I promise, I wasn’t the one who got your car scratched up. I didn’t even drive it away from here, just figured I should return it so you can get the hell out.” It’s not very nice, but he’s so goddamn done with dealing with Billy Hargrove on top of the shitshow this weekend has been. He doesn’t have the patience or brain cells left to come up with a good explanation for the dead demodog Billy apparently found in the fridge.

Silence falls between them. Clearly, Billy is too stubborn to move. And Steve is too dizzy and tired to make an effort.

It’s when their standoff reaches uncomfortable levels of tension that Joyce Byers returns with her sons, what looks to be her boyfriend and Nancy in tow. One glance at Steve and Billy and she seems to have made a good guess at what’s going on between them and never in his life has Steve been so grateful to get railroaded by an adult into just going along with them.

Nothing is apparently as powerful as a small mom with shining dark eyes and a stubborn kindness that overwhelms even Billy Hargrove into sitting back down on her porch. Then, Steve somehow finds himself plopped down right next to Billy, whose sluggish gaze clearly gets caught on the way Steve’s entire face is just a bruise.

“Admiring your handiwork?” He watches Billy open his mouth. Close it. Get out his goddamn pack of Marlboros from his back pocket and take out two sticks, handing over one to Steve before he produces his stupid fucking zippo from another pocket. Wordlessly, Steve lets Billy light his cigarette again. Watches pink lips, still stained with blood, wrap around his own stick and slowly exhale the smoke. Figures that he might have some energy left in him after all to talk, even if it’s just to tide them over till someone can drive their bruised, dizzy headed asses home.

────── 〔✦〕──────

Monday turns into a day of interrupted, nightmare filled sleep and waking hours suffering through a headache that only changes in intensity, ranging from “light hangover” to “can’t move or sleep or think”. The cursory inspection he got from a government employed doctor gave him a concussion diagnosis and strict instructions to stay at home for at least a week and to stay away from playing basketball for at least the next month. 

The beginning of the season is pretty much shot for him. Maybe he should just go back to the swim club. Sure, it’ll probably be the final nail in the coffin on his father’s disappointment in him, but man does he miss the bone-deep, satisfying exhaustion of practice already.

After he’s called in sick, someone rings the doorbell that same afternoon. He stumbles his way to the front door and opens it to the friendly face of Clara Wilson. Her expression quickly turns to shock when she takes in his swollen face. 

“Hey Steve,” she clearly tries to keep it casual. It makes him want to humor her, so he forces a smile and offers a half-hearted greeting.

“What can I do for you?” 

She visibly has to tear her eyes off of Steve’s face to rifle through the bag she’s carrying on her shoulder. Triumphantly, she finally tugs out a thin folder that she hands to him. 

“So, Mrs. Roberts approached me in history. She said you called in sick and are gonna miss at least this entire week?” He nods. “She and some of the other teachers got worried that you’d miss too much. Since I’m part of the student council, she asked me if I could bring you this week’s assignments.” Her smile and friendly tone, even combined with a look of worried curiosity, surprise Steve in the positive effect they have on his currently abysmal mood. 

The summer before he got together with Nancy, he went on a handful of dates with Clara and they almost hooked up- now, it feels like all of that lies a lifetime away. Back then, nothing more happened than a decent makeout session at the quarry. She was nice enough when she let him down after date three and apparently is still nice enough to bring him his weekly assignments to his front door. He almost feels bad for not planning on doing them.

“Thanks, how thoughtful. I have to get back and rest a bit more, but I’ll be sure to finish them.” God, he sounds like a total tool. This girl, who owes him absolutely nothing and is just doing him a huge favor is standing in front of his house and he just wants her to leave. Wants to throw the folder onto the kitchen counter and maybe brave the trek up the stairs so he can fall into his bed and lose consciousness while his headache is somewhat ignorable. His eyes strain and hurt even from looking at the TV, so he really can’t imagine he’ll be able to spend hours reading and trying to understand his homework.

Clara, oblivious to his awful mood, just beams at him, though. Wishes him a speedy recovery and then takes off. When Steve returns to the dead silence in his home, he ends up regretting that he didn’t invite her in. Even just a few minutes of smalltalk would have alleviated some of the overwhelming feeling of isolation that surrounds him every minute he spends in this house.

All he manages to do during the following days is lie on the couch and move back and forth between the living room, the bathroom and the kitchen. Good thing he for once had the foresight to stock the freezer with TV dinners, even if he already can’t stand the sight of mushy peas and carrots after day three. 

When the doorbell rings that afternoon, he only expects it to be Clara again. He’s been on the verge of a full-blown migraine for the past hour and really hopes she plans on heading off just as fast as last time. Instead, he opens the door to Billy fucking Hargrove.

“What the hell?” Steve can't help but blurt out. Hargrove looks a bit worse for wear, with a cut through his right eyebrow and an impressive shiner that Steve is pretty sure he didn’t give him. He steps back inside the hallway, not really sure why he’s letting Billy inside, apart from this vague feeling of confusion and reluctant concern.

And Billy takes him up on the wordless invitation. Steps right inside and watches as Steve closes the door and then honest to God looks a bit chagrined.

“Someone at school said you’re not coming to practice until at least December,” is what comes out of his mouth, though. And it makes any goodwill Steve felt seconds ago evaporate. 

“Yes. Because you gave a fucking concussion, asshole.” Billy winces at the venom in Steve’s voice, follows behind him into the living room when Steve tries to storm off. “If that’s all you’ve come here for, you can fuck right off.”

“Geez, calm your tits, princess,” Billy groans and it makes Steve just all the more furious. Where does Billy think he gets the right to turn up at his doorstep to complain about him not coming to basketball practice off all things?! As if Steve owes him anything after Billy put him in this state in the first place. He whips around, notices Billy’s eyes widening as he gets right in his face.

“No, I don’t think I will. You’ve been a major asshole since day one to me and I didn’t care. You’ve beat me unconscious and I’m trying really hard not to care about that, too. But you don’t get to come all the way over here, while I’m recovering from the concussion you gave me, and make me listen to your guilt trip about the fucking basketball team.” 

“That’s not what I- Look, maybe this was the wrong time to come here.”

“Yeah? You think so? Then get. the hell. Out.”

Steve doesn’t know where this short fuse has come from. Doesn’t really care, when his head is starting to pound again. He turns right back around, rips open the door to the backyard and rushes outside with a “You better be gone when I get back in” thrown over his shoulder.

There’s a pulsing beat right behind his left eye again. Like a continuous, neverending rhythm of pain, making him unable to properly see or think. Just at the edge of his consciousness snippets of sensation break through. Cold. Dark. A musty smell, like rotten leaves and vegetation. Like the forest behind his home in autumn when all leaves have fallen off, but the first snow has yet to cover it all. 

A flash of memory: His bare feet covered in dark mud and decaying, slimy leaves. Standing at the edge of the forest, his back turned to the pool. Steve doesn’t like to think of these episodes. He’s always tried to pretend like they didn’t happen, like he’s just another kid who goes to school and goes to basketball and baseball practice, who goes to sleepovers and later on when he enters middle school goes to parties. If he forgets those evenings when he once again finds himself at the edge of the property with his bare feet in cold mud, not knowing when he walked there? That’s just for the better. Steve Harrington is a perfectly normal guy. Nothing to see here for the outside world.

How he desperately wishes he couldn’t see, either. The pain in his head comes in waves and he fantasizes about grabbing something- a pipe, a screwdriver, his father’s fancy paperweight in the office- so he can plunge it into his own eye socket, just to make it stop.

“Steve?” Billy’s voice is distant, with a panicked undertone. He’s probably still inside, where it’s warm and bright and Steve probably left the door to the back open for the cold night air to slip inside. Pain still ebbs and flows through him and as he takes a deep breath of crisp, cool air, he manages to push out a clipped “over here” before the smell of rot overtakes his senses, buries into his throat until it makes him retch in disgust. 

Without anything to hold onto, he folds forward and his knees hit the soft, squishy ground in his goddamn backyard at the edge of the forest. He’s almost mad at himself for stumbling outside, even if he can’t remember how he made it here. Just wishes he was inside where it’s warm and safe instead, where Billy could maybe wrap a warm hand around the back of his neck and at least lead him towards the couch. 

His stomach clenches and saliva pours into his mouth and out of his lips when he opens them on a groan. All this cold around him and yet his head feels like its insides are set on fire, brain nothing more than hot scrambled eggs. His throat constricts and then he finally violently vomits into the leaves in front of him. Feels his stomach cramp so hard that he strains even further forward. 

The leaves, the sky, the ground, the trees- everything around him is spinning and the sweat that’s been soaking through his shirt chills him to the bone. As he tilts further downward the pulse of red-hot ache returns full force. He only has the presence of mind left to angle himself slightly to the side so he won’t fall face first into what used to be his dinner. He loses what little balance he’s been able to maintain and finally hits the ground.

The pain is all-encompassing. He drifts on it until he senses steps coming towards him. 

“What the fuck, Harrington?” Billy’s voice floats somewhere above him and he desperately wants to snark back “didn’t you know? I love lying in the dirt next to my own vomit!”. But all that comes out of his mouth is another pained groan when Billy grabs him by the arm. Slings what feels like half of Steve’s body over his shoulder and steadily carries him back towards the house. “I lost sight of you for five seconds and you were gone. Are you actually gonna let me apologize or are you too wasted to even remember this when it’s over?” Billy complains. 

“‘M not fucking high, asshole. It’s a migraine,” Steve wants to punch Billy. Really, really wants to just punch him for giving him this concussion. For being a complete dick and not even apologizing properly, no matter what he’s claiming he’s been doing here. 

But he’s also pathetically grateful that he’s here to carry Steve inside. That he carefully helps him lie down on the couch, takes his discarded blanket and wraps it around him. Finds a towel that he runs under cold water, wrings it out and carefully places it on Steve’s eyes.

“Didn’t the doctor give you painkillers for this?” comes the question at some point. 

“I can’t keep them down like this,” Steve manages to press out. He waits for Billy to leave, but all he does is sit down on the floor next to Steve. A hand lands on his chest, surprisingly grounding. They stay that way, for longer than Steve would have expected someone like Billy to stay patient. 

He still feels like crap when he takes off the towel, but goddamn him he’s curious. “So. You wanted to apologize?”

There’s a huff next to him. Szeve turns his head carefully, gets a better look at Billy in front of him. He’s wearing a sweater, dark grey and clearly new. It makes Steve absently wonder how many warm clothes Billy actually owns, considering he moved to Indiana during the summer. His curls are a bit more carefully styled, there’s a certain bounce to them even though his face now looks similarly beat up as Steve’s.

“Yeah. I, uh. Had to drive Max to visit that kid everyone had been freaking out about and his mom made me stay. I only knew the little you’d told me that night and you weren’t exactly coherent. So, she told me a bit more.” He shakes his head. “Look, it doesn’t really matter. I know I should have stopped beating you up. I actually am sorry, y’know?”

It’s not a great apology. But it sure sounds honest. Steve sighs.

“Okay. Let’s make a deal.” He can’t take his eyes off of Billy, should maybe feel more self conscious for it. Wait for him to nod. “You try not to act like a total douchebag and this will be water under the bridge. You’ve been way too invested in this rivalry in your head than I could ever be.”

There’s a pause. Billy’s smile is tentative when he nods again. Gets a bit more confident when Steve smiles back.

────── 〔✦〕──────

On a grey, muddy November evening Steve’s parents arrive in Hawkins. It’s already dark out when his dad’s Sedan eases into his usual parking spot, front lights illuminating the living room like two spotlights turning onto the stage. 

Since he’s still suspended from basketball practice until the beginning of December, he’s spent his free time during the past week deep cleaning the house. It’s not like he’s particularly untidy and generally picks up after himself. It’s just that his mother has always hated the look of a lived-in home. They do have a weekly cleaning service that takes care of the trash, laundry and surface areas and someone to take care of the garden every three months. But that just doesn’t seem like enough, considering how there’s an entire party planned for the weekend and the bruises and cuts on his face have just started to look less like he put his head in a blender. He’s not looking forward to having to explain himself to them. 

So he feels compelled to scrub the bathrooms with bleach, exchanges all sheets with freshly laundered ones and washes all their curtains. He takes his favorite rugs to mindlessly lie on to the dry cleaners on Monday, spends most of Tuesday afternoon getting the kitchen to look absolutely pristine and almost gives himself hypothermia when he decides on Wednesday that the pool, despite being covered, still needs to be cleaned. With how his grades have been dropping and his face looks right now, there really isn’t much else he can do to avoid their wrath. Still, there’s a sliver of hope left that they won’t completely lose it at him, as long as everything else is pristine.

What actually awaits him is almost worse. Because it’s just more stony silence.

────── 〔✦〕──────

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!! I’d truly appreciate a comment/kudos <3 Or, if you think someone else might enjoy this fic, why not rec it to that person? :)
> 
> Right now, I’ve got around two to three more chapters planned and roughly written- but there’s still a lot of fleshing out to do. Lots of scenes to write. Things between Steve and Billy will certainly kick into gear, though.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fully returning to school after Steve has spent most of November laid up at home missing classes and assignments is a special kind of torture.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw for parental emotional/verbal abuse after the January 1985 cut
> 
> These chapters just get progressively longer, huh? Jesus.
> 
> I'm tentatively putting this at five chapters.

_December, 1984_

Fully returning to school after Steve has spent most of November laid up at home missing classes and assignments is a special kind of torture. 

In front of his locker in between switching books from History and English class to Chemistry, he frowns down at his essay on Moby Dick with a big fat D on top. It’s hard to even remember what he ended up writing- he isn’t sure if he should bother reading it to find out. The thought of going through whatever embarrassing thesis he managed to spew onto paper after a week of barely being able to concentrate on finishing the book fills him with dread. He couldn’t even make it through five pages at a time before he’d get so dizzy from concentrating on the words swimming in his vision that he’d end up with stabbing headaches from it. Now, he’s been told to come to Mrs. Shaw at the student advisor’s office during lunch and he’s sure that’s not a good sign. 

He’s right.

The room is on the same hallway as administration and the principal’s office and serves as an instant walk of shame. Knowing the rumor mill at Hawkins High School, considering he spent years having to listen to Carol run it, the whole student body will know where he’s been summoned to by the time he leaves the room. Admin would just suggest paperwork. The principal’s office, if you got in trouble with another student or broke the rules. But the student advisor? That’s where you go when you’re the problem.

“Mr. Harrington. Steve.” Mrs. Shaw greets him when he enters. She is a kindly looking woman in her fifties, body enveloped in a huge, hand knitted pastel sweater. Her office is lined with shelves filled with books that look more decorative than actively used, potted plants and arbitrarily placed file holders. There’s exactly two posters, put up in frames, on the wall behind her desk: One advocating against drugs and one warning about teen pregnancy.

She’s nice enough, he supposes. Even when she informs him that he’s recently been missing an awful lot of classes and his grades have worsened even more dramatically from their previously risky state. As if he somehow wasn’t aware of November slipping him by in a haze of sleeping off headaches and missed assignments.

“I hate to say it, but with your current trajectory you might not make it to graduation.” It’s not like he was completely unaware that this was a possibility. But hearing it said out loud still makes his stomach drop. His mouth feels glued shut. 

“The good news is that there’s still time to pick yourself up,” Mrs. Shaw plows on, her cheerful tone clearly fuelled by unwavering optimism. “I’m aware that you had to miss classes and basketball training last month due to a concussion. But I can promise you, if you take the time now to apply yourself, go to your classes and focus on making it to the finish line, you’ll still be able to catch up.” It already sounds impossible.

“What if I don’t make it?”

She hesitates, clearly having expected for him to just nod and smile along with her. 

“Well. I wouldn’t be so pessimistic just yet. Your grades were… not stellar, but still passable at the beginning of the school year. If you can’t at least return to that level of performance and proper attendance next semester, we’ll reevaluate around spring break.” She pushes her glasses up her nose and leans slightly forward, keeping eye contact the entire time. For a woman with such an unassuming, non-threatening appearance, her gaze sure cuts deep.

“By then, we should be able to tell if you can get enough credits to graduate. And if you don’t, that doesn’t mean it’s the end of your school career.” Something hot and painful wells up inside him. The knowledge that he’s enough of a failure to mess up so badly he’s come to this point without noticing, but still smart enough to know that dropping out may be where he’ll end up by next year if he doesn’t pull himself together. 

“Steve.” Mrs. Shaw’s voice tears him from the downward spiral his thoughts were going into. “Please don’t think about dropping out. I’m sure you’re still very passionate about your place on the basketball team and as an athletic young man, you’re surely much more used to persevering and not simply giving up. If your performance by spring break suggests that you won’t meet the requirements to graduate, we’ll start looking at which classes you’ve passed and which credits you’ll still need. You’ll still have the chance to earn the rest of your credits in an additional semester.”

“And if I just wanna drop out?” He can’t help but ask. Sure, he’d like to pretend that he’ll just never know, never find out. But he has to ask. Mrs. Shaw sighs. She doesn’t look disappointed, at least. Even now, the positive energy radiating off her feels genuine and it soothes a bit of the anxiety he feels.

“If you feel like that’s the best choice for you, the school can’t stop you. You still have to finish your mandatory education as far as we’re concerned. You’re also legally an adult, so if you don’t want to return to school after the summer, I’d at least like to ask that you get your GED.”

Steve takes a moment to actually think about it. His face has been healing well, he’s technically cleared to go back to practice. He can generally pay attention in class. It’s just. He’s exhausted, still. 

It doesn’t feel like he’s prepared for his full workload just yet, but it’s not like his classes or the school year itself can be put on hold. And he believes Mrs. Shaw when she says that with his previous performance, he’d still be able to graduate- but he also knows that he didn’t just start slipping after the Upside Down. He already had more trouble sleeping and concentrating in October.  
He feels a bit spaced out when he promises Mrs. Shaw to do his best, just to cut things short. He already knows he needs to pull himself together and stop acting like such a baby.

Outside of the office, the last person he expects to physically bump into is Billy. Steve startles, stumbles, and gets held steady by two hands grasping his upper arms.

“Whoa there, Harrington,” Billy’s surprise is palpable and when he frowns at Steve, he for once doesn’t look like he’s mentally gearing up for a fight already. It’s refreshing to see. They haven’t really talked since he came over to Steve’s house to apologize- and while they do share a class or two, that hasn’t changed while he hasn’t been back to basketball practice. 

Billy’s own bruises have been fading well and what’s left of the cuts on his face just makes him look much more ‘rugged handsome’ than Steve’s own ‘wrung out insomniac’ that stares back at him in the mirror every morning. He smells strongly of cologne and fresh cigarette smoke. It should be unpleasant- but for some godforsaken reason Steve likes it.

“Uh, sorry for that,” he manages. Hopefully, Billy still feels like keeping to their deal to act cordial. Then, Steve remembers where exactly they are and one dot connects to the other. He can’t suppress the grin tugging at his mouth. “Did you get caught smoking?”

Billy’s expression turns flustered, before he visibly puts on an air of smugness. “Yeah, so what? They’re not gonna give me detention the first time I get caught.”

Steve can’t help himself, he can’t pass up an opportunity like this. “Ah, let me guess. You went to the bleachers and Mr. Wilson caught you. Gave you a boring lecture about the health risks of smoking and then sent you to the principal.” Billy’s eyes narrow. Bullseye. He lets go of Steve’s arms, but doesn’t quite move out of his space. Steve claps his upper arm, gives him a companionable shove. “That’s, like, a rite of passage, man. Better go behind the building by the science rooms, if you don’t wanna get caught next time.”

Whatever Billy expected him to say, it wasn’t this apparently. “Oh,” he says. Like he thought Steve was going to- what, be a dick about this? It’s not like he didn’t go through the same scenario his junior year when he picked up smoking and made the same dumb mistake. Billy smiles a bit more genuinely. “Why don’t you show me around, then? Give me the grand tour.” It makes Steve roll his eyes, much less wary now that it’s clear that they’re on more friendly ground.

“Come on, you’ve been here for weeks now. As if one of the girls didn’t already give you one. Or Tommy, for how much he’s been running after you.” Billy shrugs, clearly unimpressed.

“Tommy didn’t warn me about the bleachers, the asshole. Just told me to have fun and then continued macking on Carol.”

Steve snickers. “Typical.” In hindsight, playing third wheel to Tommy and Carol was only ever bearable when Steve had a girl hanging off his arm. Give them too much time to get bored and they’ll come up with at least one irritating prank to play on others and Steve could easily become their target. He’d learned early on to just smile along. As much as they’d been sucking up to Billy, he isn’t surprised that the novelty has started to wear off. What does surprise him is what comes out of his mouth next. 

“Raincheck on the school tour. But, uh, if you’re actually interested, I guess we can figure something out.” 

Yeah, what? Sure, he’s glad that Billy seems to have dialed back his animosity, but taking him pushing for a school tour seriously, when it’s much more likely to have been just a joke? That’s just asking to make fun of Steve. And of course he had to say it in a way that can’t be interpreted as anything but genuine. He can’t remember ever being this awkward since starting high school, but boy is his filter broken. Whatever goodwill he’s gained with Billy is probably gonna run out any second now.

Except Billy doesn’t look put off. Just says “You better make it worth my while. See you at practice, yeah?” and takes off towards the principal’s office. Steve watches him walk away, mouth slightly agape. Whelp, looks like he just agreed to actually hang out with Billy. What could go wrong?

He decides not to worry too much about what he’s just inadvertently signed himself up for and turns in the opposite direction of the hallway. Half his mind is occupied with considering whether he should use the rest of his lunch break to go to the cafeteria or just head outside and have a smoke in one of the corners where he actually won’t get caught. When he rounds the corner, finally having decided on getting his coat first, he completely misses Nancy waiting in front of his locker until it’s already too late.

He’s been successfully dodging both her and Jonathan in the hallways since he’s returned to school, hasn’t returned Nancy’s calls either. He went to Barb’s official funeral at the end of November, after the “news” about the lab broke, but had focused entirely on expressing his condolences to Barb’s parents and slipped away immediately after.

On some level, he’s known that Nancy was going to catch up with him at some point. And he still doesn’t quite know what he should tell her. Hell, technically she and everyone else who witnessed whatever happened with him in November has a better idea of what happened than he himself does. And he has absolutely no desire to find out what they know or talk to them about it. Hell, if he could just shove his memories of like half of that night out of his head, he’d honestly be a lot happier.

Nothing holds a candle to Nancy’s stubborn streak, though. So there she is, in her prim and proper clothes, clutching her folders and books to her chest. She’s started to ditch the pastel colors, but that honestly just makes her look even more intimidating. Like she’s shed the outer layer of soft candy colors, no longer interested in appearing girlish and sweet. A lot about Nancy is beautiful- her intellect, her confidence, her will- but underneath her delicate exterior is a hardness that makes Steve want to shy away. He squares his shoulders and hardens his jaw instead.

“We need to talk,” she tells him, calm and stern. 

“Oh, we do? And do I get a say in this?” if nothing else, he wants to make it uncomfortable for her to ambush him like this. Call him petty, but it’s the only way he can cope with the stress right now. The silent stare she pins on him, close to boiling over already with words that promise to be much more heated, makes him cower a little. “Geez, fine.” He picks up his coat, checks for his car keys. “I’m not having this conversation in the middle of the hallway. We can go to my car.”

“Great.” 

For someone who wants to get Steve to open up, she sure sucks at buttering him up. Then again, she probably knows that he’s more likely to react to being ordered around.

Outside, a strong wind cuts through Steve’s hastily put on coat. It’s probably going to start snowing soon, considering how the temperatures are dropping and the grey skies overhead. That, or the next rainfall is gonna freeze the streets overnight. Just as he’s thinking about the rain, a drop hits his cheek. He hastens his pace, makes it to his car in record time with Nancy at his heels and lets her in before he gets in on the drivers side. With a simultaneous whump, both doors close and all outside noise is muffled. Silence follows. Steve refuses to break it.

Next to him, Nancy stares out of the front window where more raindrops splatter against the glass. He watches her eyes follow the tracks the drops make as they slide down. 

“I know you don’t want to talk about what happened,” she starts as she finally turns towards him. “You obviously didn’t want to talk about last year much, either.” Guilt wells up in him. He knows now that she needed his support by listening to her without trying to push everything under the rug, shouldn’t have pushed her to move on when she wasn’t ready. He opens his mouth, to apologize or to justify himself, he’s not quite sure. Nancy lifts her palm, though, and stops him from speaking.

“Something happened to you, that night. It was like you just completely shut down- and then you were grasping at your throat and your mouth, like something was inside you, trying to come out.” She takes a deep, shuddery breath. “None of us were able to speak. It was so quiet while we watched you… contort yourself. That’s when this deep voice came out of your throat. Your mouth barely moved, but you said-” she swallows “-you said ‘a wound can be mended, but the remaining dust will fester and infect us all’. And then you collapsed.”

The more Nancy talks, the less Steve feels like he’s still in the same space as her. His vision tunnels, as if he’s sinking deeper into himself. The noise of rain drumming against the roof and windows of the car and a hint of Nancy’s perfume spreading through the space they share overtake his senses. His eyes slip away from her, get caught on the patch of grey sky visible through the window. Even wearing his coat, he’s started shivering.

It takes him a while to notice that Nancy has stopped talking, that she’s probably been waiting for him to reply to her. Awareness sluggishly returns to him. “Nance. I don’t fucking know what happened or why or any answers to any of the other questions you have.” His voice comes out almost completely toneless. Even the spark of irritation he’s felt over getting ambushed into their confrontation has completely fizzled out. He’s just tired.

“I know.”

To his surprise, she reaches out and takes his hand. “Believe me, I wish you had an explanation. I wish I could give you one. But I’m not here to berate you for something you can’t change, okay?” He nods. Her hand is smaller than his, but it’s still so warm, a single point of contact that anchors him. “So please know that you can still come to me for help.” She laughs nervously. “God, I sound like my mom.”

Relief and gratitude flood him. He still feels weirdly floaty, but at least he can stop expecting an interrogation. “Thank you,” he squeezes her hand back a little and then lets go. As much as he appreciates her offer, he doesn’t think he’s ready to rely on her just yet. He’s spent a year molding himself and his life around her and he’s still picking up pieces of himself in the fallout of their relationship blowing up. Still, as the rain lets up outside and they head back towards the main entrance, he figures that he needs to get used to Nancy still caring about him. It’s a bittersweet, but heartening thought. 

────── 〔✦〕──────

Steve’s memory after making it out of the tunnels is kind of fuzzy, considering he’d been running on fumes by that point of the night and gotten hopped up on some really good painkillers at the hospital once the government had made him sign more non-disclosure agreements than he could keep track of. What he does recall, however, is that he gave his phone number to Dustin. Ostensibly, this was supposed to be for future emergencies. What has happened instead in the meantime is that Dustin has called for complete non-emergencies- just to ask for a ride to the arcade, because it’s too cold and his mom is busy or for advice on his outfit for the upcoming snow ball.

Very early on, he’d asked what happened to Steve in November and has stayed surprisingly silent on the topic after being told to drop it ever since. Or, well, he hasn’t exactly dropped it. Just switched over to unsubtly “hinting” at always being willing to talk, about being a good listener, a good secret keeper. Steve’s silence hasn’t reduced his efforts to get him to come hang out, though. Within just a handful of weeks, Dustin has started to worm his way into Steve’s life running on sheer persistence and a penchant for talking Steve’s ear off until he agrees to help out. 

It’s hard to say no to him- and downright impossible to say no to his mom, who, upon realizing her son had recruited a high schooler as his personal driver, has extended an open invitation for coming to dinner on the days he drives Dustin around. She’s the kind of bubbly, warm person that Steve rarely has been exposed to and her cooking is infinitely more preferable to him eating soggy pasta for the third time in a row. 

He picks up Dustin on Saturday, still exhausted from his return to training this week. The team’s first game is scheduled for the coming weekend and his stamina and accuracy have dropped so rapidly from before that the coaches have had to take him out of the starting lineup. It’s humiliating, even with Billy- and even Tommy- so much more focused on just getting the team to work coherently. Training has been grueling, more so than it should be. He’s not used to how just an hour of running drills and practice matches can leave him so dizzy that he’s been coming home too nauseous to eat dinner anyways.

The party is supposed to meet up at the arcade, then have Steve and one other sibling- probably Jonathan- drive them to the movie theater and then home afterwards. Apparently when Steve turns up at the Hendersons’ place, it’s revealed that he’s supposed to join them at the theater and Mrs. Henderson, honest to God, hands him money for his ticket and snacks. Jesus Christ. “And you’re staying for dinner,” she insists, “I’m making macaroni and ground beef casserole, there should be plenty to feed the both of you!”

And that’s that.

Dustin can’t get out of the house fast enough, pretty much sprints across the front lawn just to get held up at the door, because Steve locked his car. He follows at a much more languid pace, extracts his keys from his coat and jingles them in reprimand. “As if I’m letting your grubby hands all over my car radio without my supervision,” he chides. 

“Come on, you can’t keep me from choosing the music every single time!” 

“Oh, I absolutely can and will.” As he starts the car, _Tear It Up_ starts playing and Dustin groans.

“All you listen to is Wham! and Queen, is there no middle ground for you?”

“You get to pick the music when you can actually drive yourself. Until then: Hands off.”

It’s fun, bickering with Dustin all the way to the arcade and even going inside for a bit and losing spectacularly at Dig Dug and Dragon’s lair until the rest of the party arrives. When he asks into their excited chatter “So, who else is gonna take you guys to the movies with me?” they all exchange very shifty glances. “Uh oh. What’s that supposed to mean?”

It’s Max who pipes up. “Billy agreed to take me. That way, my stepdad doesn’t know I’m meeting up with, uh,” her eyes wander towards Lucas, “everyone else. He said he’d be waiting outside.” Her expression is apologetic, the boys look straight up worried. Of course, they’re not quite up to date on Steve and Billy’s truce. 

“That’s okay. He actually came over to my place last month and apologized for beating me up.” The looks of utter disbelief on their faces make him crack up. “Don’t worry, I’ll still be in one piece when you’re done here. Keep an eye on the time so we won’t be late to your movie.”

With that, he turns around and takes satisfaction in the outraged chatter that breaks out immediately.

“Did you know about this, Dustin?!”

“This is the first time he’s even mentioned Billy in my presence, no I didn’t!”

“Do you think he’s going to leave Steve alone? Has he acted differently lately?”

“Who, Billy? How would I know?”

“You live with him! He literally drove you here just now!”

Congratulating himself on a job well done at creating some excitement by dropping a crucial bit of information right before he leaves (a trick Carol liked to use to stir up unnecessary drama), he almost immediately spots Billy’s Camaro in the parking lot. Because it’s right next to Steve’s BMW, with Billy once again leaning against Steve’s car. A cigarette hangs precariously far on his lips, draws attention to his mouth every time he sucks on its filter. He’s actually wearing a pullover underneath his leather jacket, a dark blood red quite similar to the shirt he wore when they got into their fight. For once, he looks like he’s not going to catch his death in his clothes. Upon closer inspection, the pullover appears to be handmade. 

“Nice color,” Steve grins at him in greeting. Billy grunts, clearly annoyed at Steve having noticed. Before he can get out his cigarette pack, Billy wordlessly hands him one of his again. “You know, I do have my own,” Steve halfheartedly protests while he accepts the stick and immediately puts it between his lips. He’s still trying not to fall back into the habit of going through his packs too fast. Would probably try stopping again, if it didn’t give him a reason to sneak out of school during his lunch breaks or when he wants to skip class.

“My stepmom made this. And then my dad insisted that I wear it to ‘show my appreciation’,” Billy grumbles through a cloud of smoke. Clearly, he’s in a mood today. He really must hate the pullover. Steve reaches out on pure instinct, takes the hem at Billy’s hip between his fingers and feels the wool rub between them. “Oh, it’s soft,” he mutters absentmindedly. He fights the urge to take another step closer, to get even more into Billy’s space and leech off some of his warmth. Billy’s eyes are fixed on where his fingers still hold onto the fabric, so he finally lets go. “It looks comfy.”

A bit flustered by the piercing stare he gets in return, Steve busies his hands with getting out his lighter and lighting his own cigarette. 

“Are you gonna watch the movie after this as well?” Billy still doesn’t look away, an inexplicable touch of color appearing on his cheeks. Maybe the cold is getting to him after all.

And that’s how Steve finds himself spending the rest of the day not just herding around a gaggle of excitable middle schoolers, but doing so accompanied by Billy Hargrove of all people. Apart from the massive side-eye everyone keeps throwing Billy’s way when they come out of the arcade and later when he decides to sit next to Steve at the theater, the protective posturing is kept to a minimum. 

Instead, Steve amuses the both of them by asking some innocent questions about the movie’s plot, leading to increasingly enraged reactions as he learns that the movie is based on a book the kids have read. And are very passionate about. 

The evening ends with everyone bidding good-bye to Max (and begrudgingly Billy as well), who tells Steve to finally show him ‘the good spots at school’ on Monday.

────── 〔✦〕──────

Hopper shows up on Steve’s doorstep that Sunday. Steve watches from the kitchen as a truck pulls into the perpetually empty parking spot his parents are supposed to use. Clutches his cup of coffee and follows Hopper stepping out of the car- not in his uniform, so clearly off duty- and walking towards the front door. The morning sky is sleet grey and promises either rain or snow again- or both. And here Steve stands, rooted to the floor, unable to pretend like he’s not home. His car is in the front. The overhead lights are on in the kitchen, the hallway, the living room.

He’s not that much of an idiot to not be painfully aware that he can’t run forever. So he just waits, until Hopper rings the doorbell. His socked feet come unstuck and he goes to open the door. Wordlessly lets Hopper in and leads him towards the dining table by the living room. “Steve. I’m sure you know why I’m here,” Hopper greets him.

There’s a bag strapped to his shoulder that he opens at the table. He tugs out a file that he slaps between them and opens it to the first page. Black is all that greets Steve. Blacked out spaces, with only a select few words peeking out in between. It’s meaningless gibberish, whatever is left. But there’s a corner at the top right, where a photo used to be. And next to it is a blanked out name, only distinguishable as such by the initials left visible: S H. Right at the top is another blanked out space 'The [ ] Initiative, Project [ ], subject D02'. A date puts the file at January 1971.

“I’m not sure how much you could know about… my daughter. You only met her briefly last month.” Ah, Steve thinks, the girl who’d leaned over him when he woke up. The girl with the powers. “If this file is actually about you, its newest entries are over ten years old. Owens, the guy in charge right now, told me that the lab didn’t just have one or two projects running, but at least a dozen of different scope and focus. He was clearly selective in what files he decided to give me, so this one baffled me. Until he talked to me again.”

There it is. A folder of neatly typed paper, barely comprehensible. He was maybe four in January of ‘71. He doesn’t want to hear or see this. He also can’t look away.

“Why are you telling me all this?”

“I think you already know, deep down. Don’t you, Steve?” He tries not to react. Hopper continues. “I didn’t want to believe how much influence the lab had over Hawkins and this entire county. Probably even further than that. But the tendrils they must have had, in so much more than just the few victims we could confirm…” he heaves a breath. He looks tired. “There were a lot of people employed at the lab. And sure, a bunch of them died last month. But Owens survived. The building did get evacuated, to a certain degree. And I don’t think we will ever fully know who was hurt in that place, by the people who spent years operating it. Because this whole cover-up story has given them the perfect opportunity to purge their records and move on, without taking responsibility for the people they’ve hurt.”

Steve rubs his face. Tries not to let his gaze get caught on the file in front of him again, where it’s still opened to that first page. “I never set foot in that lab.” Hopper looks doubtful. “No, I’m serious. You come here, and you expect me to, what? Know about the secret government lab, because maybe one of its unreadable files is about me?!” There’s no change in Hopper’s expression while he listens to Steve. The file swims in and out of focus.

“I need to take a break.” He shoves himself up and away from the dining room table, leaves Hopper and the room behind as he practically flees to the downstairs bathroom. He turns on the water faucet and lets the sound of rushing water create a barrier between the underlying horror he’s feeling and the surface of his awareness. 

With his hands holding him up against the sink, the sound mixes with his blood rushing through his ears. The face in the mirror is pale, shadows underneath his eyes. And the longer he looks, the more it feels like he’s looking at a stranger. The shape of his nose and eyebrows becomes unfamiliar, his mouth warps into an uncanny approximation of what might still be him. It’s almost miraculous, the thought that this stranger looking back at him is supposed to be him. That Steve, the Steve who’s inside this very body, is wearing the same foreign face. He stays likes this possibly for too long, because the next thing he becomes aware of is someone knocking at the bathroom door. Before he can react, Hopper steps inside. The water is still running.

“Hop.” He desperately tries to keep his voice as calm and collected as possible. To instill as much confidence that he doesn’t actually feel right now into his tone as his tired being can scrounge up. “This is crazy. This isn’t me.” He doesn’t know if he’s talking about the file or the face in the mirror.

“It can’t be me. 

“It can’t.”

“Kid, I’m not doing this to hurt you. But I have to know if you are one of the people hurt by that place and I can’t get much more out of Owens. He likes to conveniently forget to mention shit like these files. So if he tells me to keep an eye on someone like you? I take that seriously.”

Hopper shuts off the water faucet, grabs Steve by the arm and drags him back to the dining table. Makes him sit down and pushes the file closer to Steve with his fingertips, as if touching its paper more than necessary will burn him somehow. “Just take a look, tell me what you think and I’ll be out of your hair.” 

There’s a rubber band in Steve’s chest that feels stretched too tight, more and more with each blacked out page he goes through. It’s not a thick file, a glance at what’s visible of the dates shows chunks of time missing. Entries from early ‘71, late ‘73, leading all the way up until early ‘74. He vaguely thinks that there should be more regular intervals between the reports. Snatches of words and phrases peek through without making any sense, until he reaches what appears to be a new section. Like someone else started writing the reports between late ‘74 and early ‘77. The word ‘trial’ repeats again and again. 

He flips the file closed. This isn’t helping. He’s done.

“I know you mean well with this, Hop. And I know you all are just waiting for me to unearth a clear memory and perfect explanation, but I am asking you to leave it alone. Please.” He’s not sure what Hopper sees on his face, but it must convince him to listen to Steve. He closes the file, puts it back inside his bag and gets up. “Alright. You know to call me when there’s trouble, okay kid?” Steve nods, follows him to the front door where Hopper claps him companionably on the shoulder before he leaves. Steve can’t bring himself to regret sending him away.

────── 〔✦〕──────

_January, 1985_

It’s the goddamn tunnels again. Meandering hallways filled with hissing, slimy vines and floating spores. Hesitant footsteps right behind him. He desperately wants to turn around and tell the kids to stay close, to pay attention, but is stopped short whenever he tries. He’s dizzy and nauseous, his face a cacophony of pain where it’s been split open and bruised. But there are monsters in Hawkins and since he can’t stop these crazy, brave kids from putting themselves in danger, he’ll just have to step up and push through. Are their steps too far away? It’s so hard to tell when all sound seems to be weirdly muffled, yet stretched. His ears are ringing.

Something isn’t right. They should have reached the hub by now, should have set it aflame and turned around to walk right into the next horror. Is he really still there, trapped underneath the earth? Or is he actually- his realization is cut short by Dustin’s screams. Panicked, desperate noises that sound more and more like an imitation of Dustin- he can’t turn around. His feet are rooted to the ground by vines that crawl up his ankles. And Dustin’s desperate pleas for help echo through the darkness. They’re never going to make it out, is what he realizes.

The phone’s ringing is what finally rips him back into wakefulness. He can’t stop shivering, is drenched in cold sweat and so goddamn grateful for being woken up. On shaking legs he stumbles downstairs, picks up the phone right before it would switch to voicemail and gets a way too cheerful Dustin on the other end. “Steve, my dude, my man. This is such a serious emergency.” The contrast between the harrowing screams his head cooked up just moments ago and the cheerful, if slightly desperate tone on the other end of the line kind of gives him whiplash. “The party’s having our first full get together of the new year tomorrow. Like, we all agreed to meet up on the fourth of January before winter break, right? But my mom? Suddenly has had her book club meeting changed to Fridays. Who goes to a book club on a Friday?!”

Steve can barely keep track of the barrage of chatter. He grunts and uh-huh’s at the appropriate places while his brain slowly comes back online. Kind of enjoys that he gets to just listen to someone for once who isn’t lecturing him or talking down to him. 

Christmas to New Years had been the first time in months that his parents had stayed at the house for more than a week and he’s been feeling emotionally rubbed raw by their presence, even now that they’ve fucked off to their condo in Indianapolis again. When they’re gone, he misses their presence to fill the house with ambient noise of being inhabited. While at the same time, the days they do make it back to Hawkins usually end up filled with visits from town officials for “networking” purposes, interspersed with tense dinners where he tries to keep the conversation as much away from his grades, his extracurriculars and his college applications as possible.

It’s always a losing battle with them. 

The worst day had been just before Silvester, when he had come home from a non-optional grocery run with his mom to his father waiting with a thunderous expression in the entrance. It had only taken a second for Steve to recognize a familiar English essay with a big red D on top, crumpled in his father’s hand. It hasn’t been the first time he’s gone through Steve’s desk, where he’d likely found a bunch of the most recent D and F graded essays and tests and one of his awful college application drafts. That evening, he’d gotten to enjoy one of his father’s special yelling lectures. 

“Do you think this is appropriate? Do you have any idea how much we have done for you? How hard we are working to give you the opportunities you have and you throw that all away? Are you completely incapable of listening to your mother? To me? This is absolutely unacceptable. We clothe you, feed you, provide for you a home and education and this is how you show your gratitude? By being a goddamn screw-up?”

It’s weird, he’s lived in this house for most of his life, been provided with a decent allowance for as long as he’s had to practically take care of himself. Yet, he rarely keeps sentimental items in his room. Most of the things he owns are for school or easily replaceable. Maybe his biggest splurges are on shoes and hair care products, if he thinks about it. He mostly gets cassette tapes of the music he likes, hasn’t touched a vinyl except for the ones his parents have been keeping in the living room to show off to guests. If his tapes run through, he can just buy them back. 

So when his father turned around that day to head up the stairs, Steve already knew what was coming. It hadn’t happened in a while, he hadn’t messed up this badly since before Nancy.

He’d listened to his father go through his room and ensuite bathroom in complete silence. To the clattering of items being pushed into a trash bag, while his mom had gone to his father’s office, made herself a glass of whiskey and then closed the door. It was always better to just let the storm blow over and pick up the pieces afterwards.

Now that his parents are out of Hawkins again, he patiently lets Dustin lay out his whole attempt at sweet talking (or maybe guilt tripping) him into driving him to the Byers’ house, until he realizes that it’s been five minutes and he still hasn’t gotten to the point. “... and of course Jonathan has a shift right when-”

“You need a ride, right?” Steve finally interrupts. Is surprised that underneath a thin layer of mild annoyance, he just feels relieved that someone wants him around- even if it’s just for a ride. God, he’s pathetic. Dustin is quick to switch lanes when he realizes that he just got what he wanted. “Yess, great! You’re the best. Pick me up at five tomorrow.” 

When Steve picks up Dustin that Friday, he’s treated to a dramatic retelling of how his mom got herself a new kitten for Christmas, while Steve tries to drop as little detail as possible about his break. It would just ruin the mood.

At the Byers’ house, which looks a lot less creepy and dilapidated with its walls fixed and rooms still festive and clean, Steve realizes he has brought Dustin over for what looks like is going to be a movie night. A big bowl with popcorn, another with chips and soda bottles are set on the couch table. He’s just about to leave when he gets dragged inside to be fed dinner by Joyce. 

It’s not like he had planned to stick around for the whole evening- the kids are supposed to sleep over and he’ll pick them up the next day, but here he is, sitting at the kitchen table eating mac and cheese from a bowl and watching the kids squabble over which movie to watch. In the dim light of the living room and from his vantage point in the kitchen, he doesn’t notice her at first, not until she sneaks out the front door. He follows her.

She has dark brown eyes and wavy, brown hair. Somewhat familiar, in the way she slouches on the Byers’ front porch with her hands folded on top of her knees. After a moment of hesitation, Steve sits down next to her, looks at the ground in front of him. “So,” he says, then pauses, turns towards her. “We haven’t actually talked yet. I’m Steve Harrington.” He holds out his hand and she tentatively takes it. He shakes, then lets go. 

“I’m Jane. Hopper,” she hesitates, “but my friends call me El.”

“Nice to actually talk to you,” he smiles at her wide-eyed face, until he gets a faint smile in return. “Why are you out here anyways?”

“Too loud,” she simply says. He chuckles, nods. Yeah, these kids can be awfully noisy. He’s not surprised it got a bit overwhelming. They don’t talk for a while, just shiver a bit in their jackets in the cold. Snow begins to fall.

“I saw you, you know?”

“What?”

“In your mind.” She gestures towards his forehead. “You were in the same place I go to. But I always walk on top of the water. There was ice underneath my feet. And you were underneath the ice.”

Something about that makes Steve pause for a moment. Makes him think of darkness flooding his senses and trapping him in an icy current.

“I- I think I’m always right underneath the surface of that water,” he finally admits quietly. “I don’t want to go back there.”

Jane- El- simply nods.

────── 〔✦〕──────

Van Halen plays from the stereo in Hannah M.’s living room. Clouds of cigarette smoke permeate the space between bodies dancing. He feels a bit off-kilter, getting back into the familiar motions of visiting someone else’s house to get fucked up. It’s a lot less appealing, now that he’s spent so much time away from Hawkins’ regular party scene. But it’s the middle of January and he’s bored out of his mind.

That’s just the issue with this entire town, though. There’s nothing to do, except get drunk and high at someone else’s house or out in the forest. Blast music from a boombox and make a huge firepit to jump over. Obviously not as much during winter, when it’s much more necessary for someone’s house to be available for a weekend. 

Steve himself had thrown a handful of parties at his place to get into the good graces of older Hawkins High students. It’s how you got noticed and how you got to stick in the popular crowd: Throw a couple parties, make yourself go to other people’s parties, get drunk on a ridiculous amount of alcohol without embarrassing yourself to impress the older guys and get with as many girls as possible. Do some drugs, if they’re available, but don’t overdo it. Or at least don’t make it too obvious that you’re overdoing it. Only losers get hooked.

He’s known Hannah since middle school, she’s been on the cheer squad probably as long as he’s been on the basketball team to please his dad. Her dark hair, well-styled and giving his own look a run for its money in its gravity defying volume, had been the first thing he saw after class when she stepped up to him to invite him over. And he’d planned on saying no, except suddenly Billy had appeared next to him for their now regular smoke breaks, put an arm over his shoulder and happily declared “Of course Harrington’s coming.”

He’s smoked a bowl before heading over and just when he gets to his second drink someone changes the album to The Works, which at least lifts his mood a little. While _Radio Ga Ga_ starts playing, he’s hit with the full effect of the shots of vodka he’d had right after arriving. It’s a pleasant mixture, keeping the balance between high and drunk just so, without going too hard on either.

That’s when Billy spots him, already drenched in sweat and stinking of beer and cigarette smoke. His shirt is miraculously still tucked into his pants, which is probably the only reason why it’s not completely open. Once Steve’s eyes meet his, he moves towards him, stalks across the room much like he did last year on Halloween and gets even closer to Steve than he did back then. At least this time he’s not accompanied by his lackeys, Steve thinks sourly. He’s still a bit peeved by getting steamrolled into coming, though it’s already hard to stay mad when Billy has cranked up the charm and is directing all his attention towards Steve.

“If it isn’t King Steve himself,” Billy jokingly needles at him, leans even closer so he doesn’t have to raise his voice and pushes right into Steve’s personal space. “You don’t look fucked up enough yet.” His hand, sticky with sweat, lands on the back of Steve’s head. Runs through his hair, grabs it and tugs a little. It sends a thrill through him, the casual intimacy where everyone could see. Even at the edge of the room, where he’s been trying to make his drink last.

It’s hardly a chore to let Billy drag him into the crowd of dancing bodies. To shotgun a beer, another, then another, to his delighted whoops. To the delighted noises of others. It doesn’t send the same thrill through him as it used to. But the looks he shares with Billy, who constantly touches him to drag him around the house, who throws his arm over Steve’s shoulders and pushes their heads closer together to light Steve’s cigarette with his. Oh, that thrill is remarkable.

────── 〔✦〕──────

_February, 1985_

Steve knows he gets kind of daring when he gets actively interested in someone. There’s just something electrifying about feeling overheated from being filled up to bursting with anticipation, especially when he is pretty sure the other person is into him as well. What can he do, he’s an excitable teenage guy? And he really enjoys the attention of someone who reciprocates that interest, combined with the rising tension of not acting on it quite yet. 

That’s how he feels when he can sense Billy’s eyes on him between classes and on the basketball court. A spark of joy and of fear. When they brush against each other in the hallway as Billy sidles up to him, when Billy brushes against him at practice until Steve is worked up both over all the contact of sweaty, sticky skin and the frustration of barely getting through Billy’s guard- but also when Steve puts his hand on Billy’s arm while they talk about a Metallica album Billy wants him to listen to or when his fingers connect with Billy’s as he hands him a lighter or a cigarette.

And Billy always, always gives him that intense, piercing stare in return. A full blast of his undivided attention and delighted grin, shoved a bit too close to Steve’s face. It’s aggressive enough that onlookers still seem to think it’s because he’s trying to intimidate Steve- might even be partially true even now. 

Nancy certainly has commented on it, when he has lunch together with her and Jonathan now. “Is he still not letting up? You’d think he’d get bored at some point,” she picks at the sad excuse of carrots and peas on her tray, pretends to be looking down while clearly trying not to make it too obvious that she’s glaring in Billy’s direction. 

He shrugs, plays it off. “I don’t mind. He doesn’t act like he’s gonna beat me up anytime soon, at least?” The doubtful looks thrown at him from both Jonathan and Nancy make him wince. It’s hard to explain to the two of them that the guy who beat his face in and took his spot as reigning high school king has changed his attitude to “very likely to be flirting”.

It’s not like Steve can complain about the little jolt of intimidation he gets when they clash together and his heart leaps in his chest. How it transforms into something close to delight when a much more amicable look on Billy’s face or the tone of his voice registers and he says “Hey there, pretty boy.” When he greets Steve with the steadily familiar growing phrase when they meet up, he’s never able to quite control his face. And the triumphant, smug look Billy gets in response to whatever he sees in Steve’s expression toes the line between infuriating and endearing.

It lights that familiar spark in Steve that tells him to pay attention, because Billy is paying attention to him in return. They don’t talk much at school, too few classes overlapping and too few opportunities to hang out just the two of them. Which makes these few instances they do get all the more special to him. 

Especially that one after-lunch study hall that they get to spend tucked away in a hallway that branches off the arts classrooms where no one looks for them. 

They’d started off meeting up at the library, half-assed attempts at working on their homework interrupted when Billy threw his pen onto the folder in front of him. He’d grabbed Steve’s highlighter right out of his hand, as if he just had to make sure he’d fully gotten Steve’s attention.

“Seriously?” he’d halfheartedly protested, but Billy had just plowed on and over him. 

“Come on, isn’t there anything better to do? Don’t tell me you actually want to do your homework like a fucking nerd.”

Steve had rolled his eyes. Sure, he was barely passing his classes. Didn’t mean he couldn’t make an attempt at finishing his history assignment. But Billy did kind of have a point, his concentration was pretty much shot. So he’d snatched back his highlighter and unceremoniously shoved his book and folder back into his bag. “Fine, asshole. I’ve got a place in mind.”

Immediately, Billy’s eyebrows had shot up and he’d grabbed his own things, followed Steve out of the líbrary and through the hallways towards what by now has become their regular spot for boring Wednesday afternoons.

It’s where Steve would sometimes go with girls during lunch breaks in his freshman year to make out. When he’d told Billy at some point, not really thinking about the possible implications, he got a leer and a “Oh, is that how it is?” in return. He’d desperately tried to ignore the blush that spread on his cheeks in response.

It feels like there’s an increasingly small gap between them. Whenever they meet up, be it on purpose or by bumping into each other by accident, it’s like Steve’s body automatically turns towards Billy and Billy pushes closer in response. He has to consciously keep himself from just openly staring and touching sometimes, the same way he would if he were trying to get a girl’s attention. That’s still hard to wrap his head around at times, because Billy very obviously isn’t a girl. It doesn’t stop Steve from wanting to get closer, for him to lean over just a tiny bit more or for Billy to keep going in return. Just from the way he looks sometimes- how Billy’s eyes will hold Steve’s gaze or wander to his lips- gets Steve heated up in very familiar excited anticipation.

Despite the near-certainty that bridging that final, small gap between them wouldn’t result in a punch to the face by now and he's actually pretty damn sure that Billy would be more than okay with Steve kissing him, they haven’t done anything to act on that building tension yet. But he can feel things shift between them. It’s like Billy is still staking out the territory, prowling just outside the range of contact before he- or Steve- gets ready to pounce.

The third time they slink into their hiding spot, Billy figures out how to crack the lock to a smaller door at the end of the hallway. Steve has been aware of its existence for years, but an inexplicable feeling of dread has made his eyes gloss over its existence any time he’s visited the hallway with someone else. 

It’s inconspicuous, painted white to blend in with the wall and just a bit smaller than regular classroom doors, since it has to fit into a section narrowed by the proximity to the ceiling. 

He has, very deliberately, not looked in its direction when he’s been sitting on the floor next to Billy, leaned against the wall. It’s been easy to ignore, its existence in the periphery of his sight when he has Billy to focus on. But Billy is observant. 

It’s decently cold for February and from their current spot on the floor, tucked out of sight behind a stack of a handful of tables, they watch as the snowfall outside the windows gets thicker, till there’s an almost palpable density to it. 

“Fuck, I thought people were joking about all this snow,” Billy groans, gaze still fixed upon the window. Clearly, he’s a bit caught up in the snowfall’s hypnotizing patterns. Steve knows the feeling, has spent many a school lesson lost in the same stupor induced by staring too long at it. 

“Come on,” he can’t help but tease a little. “We’re not even that bad. Have you tried driving up to Michigan City at this time of year?” He shoves his shoulder against Billy’s. “California boy freezing his nuts off?”

Billy has had to exchange his leather and denim jackets for a fleece-lined jacket he doesn’t seem to have taken off since late December. It’s been amusing to watch him initially try to outstubborn the steadily dropping temperatures after Thanksgiving, just to look increasingly miserable whenever he’d smoke with Steve behind the science classrooms. After the Snow Ball he’d clearly given up and arrived to class after the weekend tucked into a tan, sheep wool lined coat, a blood red scarf wound around his neck and with an immensely grumpy expression on his face while smoking before class. 

Roused by Steve’s shove, Billy finally takes his eyes off the drifting snow and turns his head to glare at him.

“You’re not getting me any further north in this hellstate. December was bad enough with all that rain. You’re telling me this is the good part of the state? What the fuck, Harrington.” He shoves back in retaliation, much harder than Steve did. It almost sends him sprawling to the side before he manages to catch himself with a hand to the ground. He just grins back. 

“I spent a few winters with my grandma in Chicago as a kid. Anything close to Lake Michigan was way worse. Especially the wind.” Just the thought of being six and slipping along next to his grandma through the windy ice hellscape that was Chicago in December makes him shudder in phantom cold. Sometimes, she would take him on a trip to Michigan City to visit a friend of hers, with Steve bundled into jackets and blankets on the backseat of her badly heated car, country music playing on the radio.

“I thought you grew up in Hawkins like everyone else here? How did you just spend the winter up there?”

He shrugs, a bit self conscious now. It’s weird, having grown up in Hawkins means most people- even kids who he’s never talked to - already have an inherent knowledge of him. But to Billy, he’s probably much more of a blank slate, just like Billy is to him. 

“I was homeschooled for the first years of elementary school. My parents have always been busy in Indianapolis and Chicago, but I think the first couple of years they were still trying to… I don’t know, be around by keeping me around?” Billy’s expression is disbelieving.

“What the hell, I’d figured you’re home-grown just like all the other country-bumpkins around here,” he says. Steve smiles. 

“If your parents can afford private tutors, elementary school education isn’t that much of an issue.”

“They could just do that?” Billy breaks out into a teasing smirk. “You really are the princess of Hawkins.”

“Ugh, shut up. They were really glad when I got old enough to walk myself to school and feed myself.” 

“So you just. What? Get the house all to yourself? Must be nice.” 

“Hah. Yeah. Sure.” He tucks his legs closer to himself, wraps his arms around them as if that could get him out of Billy’s piercing stare. “What about you? Where did you grow up in California?” Billy’s expression shutters a little, becomes melancholic.

“My parents lived in San Diego with me through most of elementary school. Then they divorced and my mom fucked off, so my dad moved us to San Francisco, where he met my stepmom and Max.” It’s a curt, clinical tone he uses. It’s maybe that in that moment where he’s clearly struggling not to look vulnerable that he latches on to the door at the back of the hallway.

It doesn’t help that Billy is curious. And a slightly different looking door, tucked away at the end of a rarely visited hallway? Clearly hits the sweet spot between “somewhat forbidden” and “slightly mysterious”. Combine that with noticing Steve’s clear reluctance to even look in its direction? It’s almost surprising that it doesn’t happen sooner.

It’s not like Steve wants to stop him- he’s not a spoilsport. Hell, he’s broken into enough rooms at this very school over the years that this single, stupid door shouldn’t be such a big deal. The dread he feels in his stomach when Billy gets up and figures out how to crack it open within seconds is completely irrational, he knows that.

Behind it lies a narrow staircase that leads up just a handful of steps into a surprisingly spacious storage room for decades worth of students’ art projects. A couple of overhead lights bathe the room in a dim glow. Dust motes float in the rays that make the spots they illuminate more visible and show stacks of paper mache sculptures, painstakingly assembled house models, boxes filled with unopened cans of paint and huge, colorful canvases.

At the back, they find a sofa half buried underneath a stack of rejected costumes from the theater department and a huge blanket. They share a look over it, delighted over having discovered a much better place to spend their smoke breaks.

────── 〔✦〕──────

A hole in the ground, calling to him. Wet earth underneath his naked feet. From where he stands, he can only see the very edges of it, overflowing with vines, filled with darkness that calls to him.

The tunnels under Hawkins span for miles. There’s a pulsing tear, deep underground. It’s like a beacon, calling to him.

His way out of the tunnels is no longer through the fields. The only alternative he finds he can walk is down, deeper into the earth. 

It’s the helplessness that’s the worst part. 

He isn’t here in any meaningful way- just a badly chosen conduit that burns out a little worse every time it’s used to channel whatever foreign power it’s gotten connected to. Just barely holding on to the edges of his sanity and dragging a cloak of Nothingness over any memory he might dredge up.

His head hurts.

────── 〔✦〕──────

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no idea how the American school system works. Let’s just pretend this is how things are handled in mid-80’s rural Indiana? In addition, I also have no idea how seriously concussions were treated in the 80s, but judging from my limited knowledge of professional sports history: Not well. Don’t do contact sports when you’re still showing concussion symptoms.
> 
> The kids are watching Dune, which actually came out Dec.14th, I just wanted them to have something to watch the weekend before the Snow Ball.
> 
> If you’ve been enjoying things so far, please leave a kudos/comment!


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